Soutwest Airline is one of the most popular Harvard MBA cases. It has a legendary founder, Herb Kelleher. It operates with a completely different model than the traditional wisdom and does not pursue customer satisfaction blindly. It created a new business model for airlines. More importantly, it has defied the general gloom of the industry and been a business success.
Southwest run airplanes like buses: no assigned seating. This is probably the most hated feature and the company has stubbornly stuck to it for years. In the old days, you need to arrive early to get a placard, first come, first serve. I used to check in an hour before flight and get #89, pretty much the last one to board. I swear someone was auctioning off his number once. Later, the company allowed electronic seating order assignment. Seasoned travelers learned to check in precisely 24 hours prior to the fly time to get a better number. A friend of mine did exactly that only to get A39 — 38 people managed to get ahead of her within minutes from the starting time.
Wherever there is a demand, there could be profit. I am amused that the company now plan to sell the boarding numbers. Note that elite members of Southwest’s frequent flyers club always got preferred boarding numbers. It is not clear if $10 can get ahead of them. But the rest of the population are now more likely to get back-row seats with no over-head compartment space. They cannot compete with their diligence or efforts anymore. They must get inline with capitalism: compete with money.
Sigh.. Just charge me more and give me a seat already.