Research Paper: Southwest Airlines and Jet Blue Air Mission Statements
Introduction
Southwest airline was founded in 1971 as a result of re-branding of the former Air
Southwest Company after its President Lamar Muse sold off its promissory notes. Currently, it is one of the key airline companies dominating the United States airline industry. Its Mission Statement is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit. It endeavors to provide affordable services to its customers and seeks not to overexploit them like its competitors do. On the other hand, the Jet Blue Air’s Mission Statement is ‘to be the leading low-fare, low-cost passenger airline offering high quality customer service to under-served markets and customer who are looking for the best value in their flight’. This mission statement is echoed by a very strong vision statement that aims at providing the best and most affordable flight experience of any air carrier while providing superior service.
Bamford and West argue that a good mission statement should be short, simple, attainable and measurable. Using these aspects as the basis of ascertaining the high quality a mission statement, it is very easy to draw a clear judgement on the quality of the Southwest Airlines and Jet Blue Air companies. Starting with the Southwest Airlines, its mission statement is a simple sentence constructed from simple English words. Unlike many other companies which use their mission statements to summarize their companies, this mission statement agrees with Bamford and West through the statement of key words such as customer, service and company spirit. Chamber (2008) in his Entrepreneur’s Guide states a short mission statement leads its reader to the bottom of the company’s driving forces without time wastage. (Chambers, 2008, p. 14).
Bamford and West (2010) asserts that a short mission statement passes the quality test as it is easy to recall and gives a very clear insight of what the company endeavours to achieve. This compliance is also evident in the construction of the Jet Blue Air’s company mission statement. Similarly, it is a simple and direct statement that reveals clearly the objectives that the company seeks to achieve in discharging its duties. (Bamford and West, 2010, p. 70)
The two mission statements also meet the second threshold of simplicity. This implies that they are consumable by people of both intellectual and non-intellectual social families. This simplicity and up to the point nature of these statements makes them part and parcel of every member of the society who are able to read, understand, recall and use them at all levels of their interaction. A revisit at the two mission statements clearly indicate that there is no use of complex terminologies that can hinder their understanding and application.
Going by the two mission statements, they are capable of directing every worker towards specific general goal that these companies are seeking to serve. According to Flouris and Oswald (2006), mission statements are developed by companies to ensure that they meet their expectations. They add that the roles of such institutions to their communities are also clearly stipulated while stating their mission statements. Southwest Airlines aspires to offer their customers high quality services. In fact, they commit themselves it and look forward to working hard and achieving it. This would mean that every employee of this company must work focused towards the success of this objective. Similarly, Jet Blue Air is committed to offering high quality flight services to its customers at lower fare than its competitors. ( Flouris and Oswald , 2006, p. 12)
Finally, a good mission statement forms the threshold from which its performance can be evaluated. As discussed before, the mission statement directs all employees to work hard towards a common goal. Kenney and Raiborn (2012) supports this view. They say that a company always direct its resources towards the achievement of the state objective in its mission statement. The statement echoed in the mission statement should therefore be measurable. This is very important especially at the stage of evaluating such company’s performance for a given period of time. On my view, I strongly believe that the mission statements for the above airline companies are measurable. This is because they contain all the elements that constitutes a good mission statement. ( Kinney and Raiborn, 2012, p.555)
Jet Blue Air Community Responsibility
Jet Blue Air commits itself to the community that hosts it in various ways. It begins by recognizing the key role played by the society in its growth and development. In this recognition, it is in the front line in promoting the community’s welfare through special programs for its youths and education, environment, charitable work and the community at large. It focuses on educating the Youth through innovation and creativity that involves an educative early childhood literacy website called soarwithreading.com. This website offers young kids lots of educative tools and applications such as games, activity booklets, parental tips and reading lists. In addition, this company has organized and hosted literacy awareness events that have benefited many children mainly from low-income families. For instance, in 2012 it donated books worth $200,000 to needy children. Its commitment to the youth and their education also goes beyond this level. It has instituted several initiatives to promote education for the needy children through fundraising and partnering with companies such as First Books to avail reading materials for such children.(JetBlue, 2012)
Its connections with the community is anchored on the passionate corporate giving that is championed by its crewmembers. It also recognizes and rewards its hard working crewmembers through offering their preferred organizations travel gifts for every twenty five hours their volunteer their services to the community. For instance, its 2012 From Blues to You charitable program has fostered teamwork that has raised funds through small groups.
This company’s environmental commitment is manifested in their approach towards carbon dioxide emissions. Jet Blue Air entered into partnership with carbonfund.org in 2008 to enable its customers and crew members offset their carbon debts resulting from their daily flights through carbon offsets. This initiative has been echoed by the community and it has made this company’s environmental commitment very clear to the society. In fact, in 2011 its non profit partner organization carbonfund.org recognized the Jet Blue Air’s contribution towards environmental conservation by awarding it the People and Planet Award 2011. Jet Blue Air’s second move towards environmental conservation the Do One thing That’s Green campaign. This initiative encourages Jet Blue Air’s customers and crew members to do at least one thing that is green. In other words, it is encouraging afforestation to keep the environment thriving and fresh. This program has also drawn the interest of community volunteers who have boosted the customers and crew members’ efforts leading to planting of millions of trees in the New York state. (JetBlue, 2012)
References
Flouris T. G. and Oswald S. L. . (2006). Designing And Executing Strategy in Aviation
Management (illustrated ed.). Cornwall: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Kinney M. R and Raiborn C. A. (2012). Cost Accounting: Foundations and Evolutions (9 ed.).
USA: Cengage Learning.
Bamford C. E. and West P. G. (2010). Strategic Management. USA: Cengage Learning.
Chambers, K. D. (2008). The Entrepreneur's Guide to Writing Business Plans and Proposals
(illustrated ed.). USA: Greenwood Publishing Group.
JetBlue. (2012). JetBlue. Retrieved March 31, 2013, From Corporate Social Responsibility:
http://www.jetblue.com/about/corporate-social-responsibility/youth-and-education/
http://www.tampaairport.com/about/facts/activity_reports/2005/marketshare_jan2005.pdf
