« Observations and Lessons | Main | Six Degrees of Michael Stipe »
January 09, 2006
Travel Notes
Airline travel used to be fun. Back in the day, I had my own copy of Delta's timetable - the booklet that lists every flight and includes information about the aircraft and type of service provided. (I haven't seen one of those printed in years.) I was a reasonably frequent flyer and used to comb the book to find just the flight and service I wanted. Upgrades to first class could be had for a mere $60 if you didn't have enough miles. Alaska Airlines was the airline of choice for any trip in their service area. In addition to the extra legroom that made them highly attractive, they offered such amenities as free wine on their flights. Ah, those were the days.
Fast forward. Airline travel is not fun. I have done it a few times since I moved to Syracuse and really, it's almost worse than riding the bus. The rows get increasingly close together (remember that rule about putting your head on your knees and covering in case of an emergency? Fat chance!). The seats measure in a 17.3 inches wide. Do you know anyone with a 17" shoulder span? No, me either. Well, except for a some younger folks who also wear size 2 and 6, respectively, or a group under the age of 12. Seriously - you don't have to be overweight to not fit on the plane. It really is like packing sardines into a can. It makes me think of that program where they put the couple in a house for a year where everything was about 3/4 size and they had to live as if it were all normal. Drove them nuts with frustration and anger. It's the same - crammed into a too small space for a long time. And yet we do it - many of us - enough to oversell just about any flight that comes here - because it's still the way to get from here to there and back in a reasonable amount of time and with a minimum of personal wear and tear.
In the current edition of American Way magazine, the president wrote in his column about a proposal to open Love Field (in Dallas) for long haul flights. Apparently this would benefit the field's chief occupant - Southwest Airlines. American, with its big hub at DFW, is opposed to this change, and some of the implications from the impact study suggest they are right to do so for reasons even beyond their own competitive positioning. But that's not the part that was interesting to me. The interesting part was when he referred to Southwest Air as the wealthiest domestic airline.
Now, I've "known" Southwest Airlines since they were "born", so to speak, and the reason I find their wealth interesting is because from the beginning they did it differently than the rest of the airlines. At first, that meant they did things that business travelers, in particular, didn't like and wouldn't fly because of. But now, I think it means something more interesting - something to do with not carrying the weight of prior labor agreements in various forms, not having to maintain the kinds of long-haul and international systems that the other domestic airlines still carry. Lots of interesting business choices and an interesting result in a globalized world.
Southwest Airlines is a case study in many business success books. If I had the time, and I don't right now, it would be interesting to do a project studying the course of the airline, what business pundits said about it, what has happened, and how it came to be that a small start-up with a used fleet, no seat assignments, and a reputation for the quirkiest safety announcements in the industry came to be the wealthiest of all. (Book suggestions or other references gladly accepted).
Posted by cageyer at January 9, 2006 10:17 AM