Name: Richard Sweet
Occupation: Senior Director of Marketing and Sales for Southwest Airlines, responsible for all of the airline’s field marketing activities throughout the United States as well as for marketing planning. He is located at the company’s headquarters in Dallas, Texas.
Background: Sweet has been employed at Southwest for more than 14 years. He has held several positions in various cities in the Southwest system, including regional marketing manager in St. Louis, district marketing manager in Los Angeles and area marketing manager in Phoenix. Before joining Southwest, Sweet was a marketer for the oil well service firm Gearhart Industries. He has also served on the board of directors of SatoTravel Inc. in Arlington, Va., and Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Greater St. Louis.
Education: Bachelor’s degrees in business administration and journalism from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
Age: 41
Family: Married with a son, 10, and daughter, 6
Residence: Colleyville, Texas (a suburb of Dallas)
IN FORMATION and on target Southwest Airlines’ Boeing 737s in colorful array pass over the Grand Canyon. At top right is Richard Seet, Marketing Director.
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PBN: Southwest recently announced nonstop service to Phoenix from T.F. Green Airport. How have those flights been selling? SWEET: They are doing great. They have only been in service for three days; we started on Dec. 7. We did meet our expectations on those flights, and, as we go into the holidays, things just continually get stronger. For the foreseeable future, it looks really good.
What are Southwest’s expectations for the new Phoenix service?
Usually we want to make sure that we mirror what our average system load is, but I actually think these flights will exceed that.
What other nonstop destinations is Southwest considering from T.F. Green?
There are always considerations, but we don’t publicize them. We don’t want our competitors reading about those and then preempting us. I will say that as well as Providence has worked for us, we certainly will look for opportunities to add service to existing markets as well as, potentially, new markets.
Overall, what’s the trend in passenger volume from T.F. Green for Southwest?
The simple answer is that the trend is continuously and has always been up. In fact, the first and second quarters of 1999 were up 23 percent over the first and second quarters of 1998. And from 1997 to 1998 we were up 18 percent. So we continue to have a very good growth rate. It ran pretty consistent with T.F. Green’s overall growth rate, but, in fact, we are now growing at a greater clip than the airport itself is growing.
How many passengers are flying Southwest from T.F. Green?
In the second quarter of 1999, which was the last Department of Transportation numbers published, Southwest’s numbers for T.F. Green were 370,580. The third and fourth quarter will continue to grow.
Do you expect the growth to continue at the same clip you’ve experienced in the last two years?
Yes, we do. In facilities for the short term, we’re fine. As long as we have the facilities and the airplanes to meet the demand, philosophically what we do when we reach a point that our demand is so high is we throw inventory at it. The normal business model may say you raise fares to curb demand, but we’ll throw additional capacity at demand and continue to absorb it. The way T.F. Green has started and continued to grow, I foresee that we will continue to add service to existing markets and new markets.
Southwest recently began offering service from Bradley International Airport in Connecticut. Will this have any effect on T.F. Green?
No, those flights wouldn’t have been intended for Providence, nor would we have carried the same customers. Bradley really services the state of Connecticut, mostly to the south and to the east. There’s substantial numbers of people there to pull from. Providence still has plenty of opportunities with the Boston area and Providence and Newport and the state of Rhode Island. So, in our minds and what’s holding true, is that we haven’t cannibalized ourselves at all.
What is Southwest’s overall strategy for New England?
We want to service airports that are under-served and overpriced (in terms of fares). Using that, we’ve got quite a few opportunities up in the Northeast because historically it has been under served and overpriced. What has happened in the Northeast over time is that the prices continue to go up, and that basically curbs demand. Well, we come in and we stimulate demand with low fares. Therefore, we can continue to throw flights at them. Because it’s such a populous area, it gives us a lot of opportunities.
Some observers claim that Boston’s Logan International Airport is overburdened and that regional airports need to take some of the load off. Do you think T.F. Green has the potential to take more of that load?
No question about it. We looked at Providence itself as an opportunity, but what makes it more of an opportunity for us is the Boston market. Logan, as you probably well know, is not only overburdened, but it’s a big pain to fly in and out of. After you get through the Callahan Tunnel, you’re only halfway there. And getting that far, you’ve accomplished a lot. We’ve always looked at the potential market being at least midway up the Route 128 loop (in eastern Massachusetts) and south. If it relieves the burden off Logan, that’s great for them, but really our intent was to increase our potential market up there. Just to clarify that, we could potentially be pulling additional market share from Logan, but what we’re doing is we’re also stimulating a market that historically hasn’t flown as frequently if it has flown at all. So, we’ve got leisure people that are flying because the fares are cheaper. We’ve got business people flying more because now they can afford to do so. In addition to maybe relieving Logan a little bit, the market is just growing too.
The planned rail link to T.F. Green would connect the airport to Amtrak and Massachusetts commuter trains in a few years. Do you expect the link to have a noticeable impact on Southwest’s passenger numbers?
We think anytime you make airports more accessible, that certainly makes it easier. Now, we don’t go in and try to subsidize these things happening, but, I think, there is certainly a greater chance for more business if you make the airport more accessible. Since the train stops in the city right now, extending it makes it a little more convenient for anybody that’s coming down from the Boston area. We can certainly see some residual impact from that.
Should airline passengers have any trepidation about flying on our around New Year’s Eve?
No. We certainly don’t think so. We continue to maintain our usual high standards of service. We’ve been preparing for Y2K since 1996. We actually use 100 percent Boeing aircraft. Boeing has certainly assured us that their airplanes are safe.
Are travelers buying tickets for flights on New Year’s Eve or have you noticed any reluctance to fly then from customers?
The business has been typically good. Understand that during the holiday period, as the clock turns to midnight, people don’t want to be flying around. They want to be on the ground celebrating. We have historically not run a full schedule on holiday periods. We’re actually going to run about the same schedule as we do on a Thanksgiving Day.
We’ve seen a lot on television lately about so-called “air rage.” Is Southwest doing anything in particular to address the issue?
Not really. The nature of our business is mostly short flights. I don’t believe we experience the number of air rage incidents that maybe other carriers do. We hope and believe that a lot of times good customer service will prevent that. Having said that–that there’s nothing special going on–one thing that we are very supportive of is our own employees. We certainly want to make sure that they are not subject to any kind of this rage or abuse, if you will. We certainly watch it close to make sure that they are not.
Travel agents here have complained about the airlines cutting back on commissions, which many agents say has forced them to begin charging customers service fees. What is Southwest’s position on travel agent commissions?
We made a pledge during the first cutback, which was when the other carriers took commissions from 10 percent to 8 percent. At that time, we pledged to continue to pay 10 percent through the year 2000. And we’ve continued to stick to that pledge. What we will do is look at our percentage of agency sales and what it’s done at the end of next year and go from there.
