Southwest's preservation of its renegade image hinders innovation

Recently Southwest CEO Gary Kelly declared the carrier has been, "a disruptive force for five decades". But while the company has taken great care to preserve its pioneering low-cost and low-fare image (neither of which still neatly applies), full service carriers have fundamentally changed their businesses - at the same time as ultra low-cost airlines and hybrid carriers have structurally evolved the business model on which Southwest has built its legend.

As the strict adherence to Southwest's simple low-cost carrier playbook has been abandoned by the new breed of hybrid carriers that began making their marks during the early to mid-2000s, Southwest has undergone its own subtle transformation, albeit on its own terms. The downside of maintaining a pioneering image is the constraints it sometimes creates in attempting to alter outdated elements of a business.

Southwest's influence in the respective evolving airline business models - revamped full service carriers, hybrid airlines and ultra low-cost operators - has arguably been diminished as its conservative approach has resulted in the carrier moving slowly to embrace new approaches to its business. Southwest as a consequence will be less disruptive in the coming decades as it works to determine where it falls in a US market place which may be about to reach a new level of maturity as the mergers creating three large network carriers take full effect.