»»Southwest Plans To Expand in Big Business Markets
US’ largest low-fare carrier Southwest Airlines is set to entry into the airports of Minneapolis-St. Paul (next March) and New York’s LaGuardia as well as to increase service on more heavy business-travel routes in 2009. That is part of the Southwest’s strategy to capture more of the business-travel market in 2009.
Southwest has already introduced some changes in 2008 to better serve business travelers.
A new pricing system offering up to 15 different fares — the old system offered as few as three fares on many routes. A new flight-scheduling system gradually is reducing flight frequencies on lower-demand routes and adding flights on business-travel routes. Also airport gates have been updated with business-traveler-friendly features such as laptop workstations.
By citing the result of an internal research Southwest says it is already No. 1 in domestic business travel.
Dave Ridley, Southwest’s senior vice president, says:
“We’ve always appealed most to people who pay for it out of their own pocket, whether it be entrepreneurs, or small-business owners, or professionals who recognize that what they spend on travel isn’t coming out of some big corporation’s travel budget but out of their own pocket, but that doesn’t mean we don’t appeal to those who don’t pay for it out of their own pocket”.
He adds: “We are trying to convince business travelers that our service offerings really do meet their needs”. (Source)
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