Company profile

Future of Southwest Airlines

#
Rank
709
| Quantumrun Global 1000

Southwest Airlines Co. is a significant American airline, the biggest low-cost carrier in the globe, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The airline was formed by Herb Kelleher in 1967 as Air Southwest and then assumed its current name, Southwest Airlines, in 1971 when it started operating as an intrastate airline wholly within the state of Texas.

Home Country:
Industry:
Airlines
Founded:
1967
Global employee count:
53536
Domestic employee count:
Number of domestic locations:

Financial Health

Revenue:
$20425000000 USD
3y average revenue:
$19616666667 USD
Operating expenses:
$16665000000 USD
3y average expenses:
$16249666667 USD
Funds in reserve:
$1680000000 USD

Asset Performance

  1. Product/Service/Dept. name
    Passenger
    Product/Service revenue
    18594000000
  2. Product/Service/Dept. name
    Freight
    Product/Service revenue
    171000000
  3. Product/Service/Dept. name
    Other
    Product/Service revenue
    1660000000

Innovation assets and Pipeline

Global brand rank:
426
Total patents held:
16

All company data collected from its 2016 annual report and other public sources. The accuracy of this data and the conclusions derived from them depend on this publicly accessible data. If a data point listed above is discovered to be inaccurate, Quantumrun will make the necessary corrections to this live page. 

DISRUPTION VULNERABILITY

Belonging to the transportation and logistics/shipping sector means this company will be affected directly and indirectly by a number of disruptive opportunities and challenges over the coming decades. While described in detail within Quantumrun’s special reports, these disruptive trends can be summarized along the following broad points:

*First off, autonomous vehicles in the form of trucks, trains, planes, and cargo ships will revolutionize the logistics industry, allowing cargo to be delivered faster, more efficiently, and more economically.
*This automation will be vital to accommodate the growth in regional and international shipping driven by the economic growth projected for the African and Asian continents—projections that are themselves spurred by their massive population and internet penetration growth forecasts.
*The plummeting price and increasing energy capacity of solid-state batteries will result in a greater adoption of electric-powered commercial aircraft. This shift will lead to significant fuel cost savings for short haul, commercial airlines.
*Significant innovations in aeronautical engine design will reintroduce hypersonic airliners for commercial use that will finally make such travel economical for airlines and consumers.
*Throughout the 2020s, as the e-commerce industry continues to grow in developed and developing countries, postal and shipping services will flourish, less to deliver mail and more to deliver purchased goods.
*RFID tags, a technology used to track physical goods remotely since the 80s, will finally lose their cost and technology limitations. As a result, manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers will begin placing RFID tags on every individual item they have in stock, regardless of price. Thus, RFID tags, when coupled with the Internet of Things (IoT), will become an enabling technology, enabling the enhanced inventory awareness that will result in significant new investment in the logistics sector.

COMPANY’S FUTURE PROSPECTS

Company Headlines