USA: Southwest Airlines (SWA) 'Buzz' Takes Big Hit

Date Posted: 14 March 2008

On March 6th, 2008 a story broke in the Wall Street Journal that Southwest Airlines failed to properly inspect nearly four dozen older planes for potentially hazardous structural cracks, during a brief period in March 2007.

Southwest, a low-cost airline carrier, completed 1,451 flights on the uninspected aircraft’s, and eventually found cracks in 6 of the planes after taking them off the runway at the end of the month.

Since the story broke last week, the FAA has suggested a $10.2M penalty -the largest imposed against any passenger carrier in roughly two decades. Most recently, on March 12th Southwest pulled dozens of aircrafts and cancelled 4% of their flights sighting more potential safety concerns.

BrandIndex analysis shows that Consumers consistently rank Southwest highest (high 30s / low 40s) in the airline sector. Since the story broke, Mindshare for Southwest has increased 33%, from 35 to 47 whilst 'Buzz' has decreased from 22 to -1, Southwest’s lowest score since initial tracking in June 2007.Quality scores have shown resiliency, holding steady in the low 30s – also a high for the sector.

Southwest’s resiliency is likely due to two factors. The safety lapses happened almost a year ago, were corrected quickly, resulted in no injuries and were reported to the FAA voluntarily by SWA.

The SWA brand ranks in the top 10% of all 1,025 brands in BrandIndex USA. A single misstep, even a serious one, may not jeopardize the brand.

The key for Southwest will be to ensure that this remains an isolated incident and it puts this news story behind it, and returns to its winning ways with consumers.

Ted Marzilli, SVP and General Manager, Brand Group, YouGovPolimetrix

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