Herb Kelleher

In the “horrible” business of airlines, Southwest cofounder Herb Kelleher credits his company’s success to planning for bad times and encouraging unconventional thinking.

Emirates Airline

Emirates Airline has bucked industry slumps with a 25 per cent annual growth rate since it was founded in 1985. What lies behind its success and what challenges does it face as it prepares to step up its expansion?

Herb Kelleher

Herb Kelleher speaks with Babson Insight about the challenges faced by the airline in its early entrepreneurial years as they worked to create a new market segment in air travel, how they managed the strategy, people and growth as the company transitioned to become a large organization, and his thoughts about the future of his famous company.

Smarter ways to do business with the competition

Companies that enter into strategic alliances thus encounter many dilemmas. This article summarises the key issues into six categories of 10 dilemmas and discusses how Star Alliance, the world’s largest airline alliance, has dealt with these 10 dilemmas.

Herb Kelleher

Herb Kelleher, Executive Chairman and Co-founder of Southwest Airlines Talks About Building Leaders and How their Innovative People-culture has Lifted the Airline to Success

Herb Kelleher

Encountering Turbulence

As major airlines in the US and Europe restructure or seek bankruptcy protection from their creditors, they have no shortage of culprits-from the September 2001 terrorist attacks to the war in Iraq and surging oil prices-to blame for the problems that have plagued them in recent years. The biggest threats, however, may be more structural. Low-cost carriers have drawn travelers away from the major hub-and-spoke … [ Read more ]

Flight for Survival: A New Business Model for the Airline Industry

To pare down their colossal operating costs, giant U.S. and European carriers must restructure the hub-and-spoke system and eliminate complexity.

Lufthansa – maintaining change momentum

This article – a specially abridged version of a full case study – describes how the company went from the brink of disaster to becoming one of the world’s leading airline companies.

European Airline Industry: Ryanair in 2003

This case takes the reader through a step-by-step evaluation of Ryanair in a highly competitive, high-pressure industry and examines future strategy options for the company and its competitors. How big can Ryanair become with its current strategy, and what strategy will they need to go beyond that? What is the growth potential in its niche and beyond? Is it now time to think about ‘the … [ Read more ]

Herb Kelleher

Co-founder, current chairman and past CEO of Southwest Airlines

Greg Brenneman

president and COO of Continental Airlines