Southwest Airlines is currently experiencing a little trouble with their reputation. One of its 737-300 planes developed a hole in its roof... while in the air. Three more were found with cracks in them, and ultimately 79 out of 170 737s were grounded for inspection. This creates problems everywhere for the airline. First of all, they lose business because of the planes being inspected - that's 79 less planes to fly and hundreds less passengers. Second, people on the flight where the roof deteriorated could be contemplating taking legal action against Southwest, which with the current repairs/inspections, probably doesn't fit into their budget. Third, reputation is everything, especially when it concerns people's safety. Southwest's reputation isn't the best right now, and this will likely cause them to lose even more business. Also, like I said before, they probably didn't factor the costs of major repairs, inspections, and time lost to identify what is causing these problems (which they still haven't done) into their budget. The bottom line is: They are going to lose money.
However, this might hold a bit of a bright side for the consumer. For those that don't see the current situation as that big of a deal, they might get cheaper rates from desperate Southwest Airlines. With the recession, there might be more of those people than there would be in a thriving economy, and that will probably help the airline out a bit. I doubt Southwest will go under because of this, but this is going to be a big hit to its PR and its pocketbook.
12 comments:
I think this is a great example of change in consumer tastes and possibly a change in governmental regulations. I agree that Southwest must offer lower fairs in order to offset declining demand.
Southwest planes are slowly being taken out of commission one by one, due to the cracks being found in there 737 Boeing planes. This issue is causing an upset with customers who have already scheduled flights or who are planning to. The demand for tickets on Southwest is high but the supply has decreased drastically. In the future we can except that Southwest’s airfare is going to decrease because less people will be willing to pay for an unsafe airplane. The demand for airplane tickets will not be changing much over the years, but the demand to fly on Southwest will. With this being the case Southwest is going to have a hard struggle to stay in business. I don’t agree that Southwest is not going too effected. With this issue continually getting worse by the week they are going to lose a lot of business and in the future less people will buy from them. They should have caught the issue before the first flight taking off. This issue should not have happened in flight. People are not going to sympathetic to an issue that could put their lives in danger. Personally I would rather pay for to be safe then pay less and have a risk of dying because of a mistake in the planes structure.
-Meggan S
I agree with Alison, this would definately be a big problem for Southwest Airlines. Even though people have the idea of getting everything cheap in this economy, they still want to be safe and still live. I think that Southwest may go under or possibly be bought out by another airline. If that happens, then it may help with their reputation and accountability with their planes.
Safety is number one in the minds of most people when they step onto an airplane. If the planes are notorious for being faulty then I definitely see less people using that airline. I know it definitely made me feel less comfortable flying Southwest. This could do some serious damage to Southwest from a business perspective.
I do believe that most people will look at the airline being southwest due to this accident. However alot of people will also look at the company who builds the plane and try and fly on a plane built from another company. This is so because it really isn't southwest fault for the crack but Boeings fault in the material they use. Therefore i believe that if any legal action were to take place it would be smarter for the passengers to attack Boeing rather than Southwest. Although Southwest will probably be discredited for its safety boeing might also loss some business as well creating a big problem in the economy than initially expected.
Southwest is already known as the cheapest airline but this is a whole different type of cheap. The company obviously has been spending more time on managing new commercials rather than taking care of their product and keeping people safe. This is a serious issue and I would see the company taking a hit soon.
First off Southwest Airlines doesn't make planes, boeing does. Boeing also makes planes for American, Delta, and United Airlines. Southwest properly maintained their aircrafts and therefore it is boing's fault and they are taking responsibility (meaning they're fixing it). You say people would be willing to pay the extra money. Weather they were on southwest or not, they still would be on the same boeing 737, just a diffrent decal on the outside. Rather than hurting Southwest or boing what this might do is make people not want to fly as often and hurt the Airline business as a whole.
I agree that this is bigger than just a Southwest problem. Face it, all aircraft are getting older, and with age comes wear. People do not know enough about aircraft, they might just think that Southwest isn't safe, but as Brandeezy said, they aren't the only ones flying Boeing 737's.
All aircraft companies have maintenance programs designed to find these types of problems budgeted into their operating expense, but when an incident like this happens it has repercussions that extend outside their budget and like this case into the industry.
@ Meggan:
When I said, "I doubt Southwest will go under because of this, but this is going to be a big hit to its PR and its pocketbook." I meant that it will be affected, but they just won't go out of business. Southwest is going to have major problems because this.
@Brandall:
That's true, but most people aren't going to take the time to figure that out. Southwest represents its planes. Whether it's their fault or not, they are the scapegoat and will probably be the ones targeted for this.
Right now after all the careful mandatory inspections Southwest has had to go through their plances are probably safer than anyone else's. I still would fly on them. Not everyone though may be thinking that way and I am sure that they have taken a hit financially. They had to cancel alot of their flights and spend alot of money for all the inspections. Hopefully the FAA will make all airlines go through these safety inspections.
Also one major reason Southwest will be okay is because 48 percent of airline passengers are flying at the expense of their employer. And most big companies wont care at all about this. Also Southwest flights are so much cheaper than other major airlines that I believe passengers will ride regardless of these problems.
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