Southwest Airlines gaining Business market share
Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly stated the LCC has carried out some marketing surveys to find it is among the leading carriers in the country in terms of Business market share (Seeking Alpha, 21-Oct-2010).
Southwest Airlines: "Clearly, we're gaining [business traffic] share. That's an undeniable fact domestically. We're gaining share relative to the last several years. A lot of that share is to consumer, but it's also business travelers. Just with the product enhancements we've made, giving the road warriors more choice, we do believe that we're seeing more business customers come Southwest way. There is variety of things going on in our 16.1% unit revenue improvement. We've deployed 10 different initiatives or more and it's hard for us to piece apart what value is being driven by each one, but again we want to share that with you all when we'll have more time to do that. What I hear from business customers is the fact that we've introduced an enhanced boarding process with the Business Select product, with enhanced frequent flier benefits, has caused them to change their flying behavior and bring their business to Southwest," Gary Kelly, CEO. Source: Seeking Alpha, 21-Oct-2010.