Turning the Page: What is Next for Air Travel

added that the company expected its business travel to return to 2019 levels in the following month.

The return of federal and state government travel is underway, leading the return of the business travel market. Domestic travel is returning at a faster pace than international travel, due in part to border and pandemic-related restrictions.

Watterson shared that supply chain issues continued to affect the airline industry by causing increased lead times for large capital equipment. Suppliers and manufacturers of new aircraft and components parts are largely sold out for 2027 and 2028. In effect, this issue constrains the industry, a problem that is only intensified by staff and pilot shortages.

Southwest is focused on three areas going forward. First, improving its service modernization, meaning to improve upon what it supplies to its customers and partners. This includes enhancing its onboard Wi-Fi, enlarging overhead bins, and providing in-seat power for each customer.

ular with consumers, it was not always easy for organizations to do business with it. In response, the airline has been on a path toward removing these friction points for organizations it does business with.

While Southwest likes to think of itself as a small, scrappy airline, it is actually a rather large airline said GovTravels keynote speaker Mr. Andrew Watterson, Chief Operating Officer at Southwest Airlines. The airline reaches 121 destinations across 11 countries, carried 127 million passengers last year, has 66,656 employees, and 770 Boeing 737 aircraft in its fleet—and with approximately 600 more planes on order, the company plans to grow.

With regards to its connection to the military, Watterson said Southwest employs 8,700 veterans and has 1,439 GSA City Pairs awarded. In addition, the airline carried 397,000 military passengers and 451,000 military bags last year.

While the company has long been pop-

There are four ways Southwest has enhanced its value proposition to military customers: It provides Early Bird checkin as part of its YCA government fares. This automatically checks-in the passenger 36-hours before the scheduled flight. Active duty military with valid IDs can now board between the A and B boarding groups. In addition, military bags fly free. Finally, the airline has invested in the Defense Travel System (DTS) and MyTravel for a seamless booking and ticketing process.

Unsurprisingly, there was a drop in average daily domestic flights across the airline industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But while business travel was often fully restricted by companies, there was still leeway when it came to leisure travel. For that reason, travel did not drop off entirely, and leisure markets came back much more rapidly than business markets.

“In fact, leisure travel is well above what it was in 2019 and business [travel] is not yet back overall. At Southwest Airlines, given the investments we’ve made in the technology I mentioned, our people, our organization, and processes, we have put a focus on more business travel since just before the pandemic,” said Watterson. He

Second, the airline will make improvements that will affect its front line as it focuses on modernizing its operations. “We’ve done a lot of work in the back office with upgrading systems that were around safety and compliance, but the user interface to the front line was not as mod- ernized,” explained Watterson. “This year we are going to be going back and working on the human-machine interface for a lot of our front line so it makes it easier for them to do their business.”

Suppliers and manufacturers of new aircraft and components parts are largely sold out for 2027 and 2028. In effect, this issue constrains the industry, a problem that is only intensified by staff and pilot shortages.

The third and final focus was sustainability efforts. “We are looking to reduce our carbon footprint. We can do as much as we want on the ground, but the bulk of our carbon comes in the air. So, this is both working on aerodynamic modifications to our aircraft [and] renewing our fleet are ways to reduce our current consumption, and then also with sustainable aviation fuels which we’re investing in,” said Watterson.