Fandom Unpacked

The Heart of Travel Fandom: A Digital Journey with Southwest Airlines

• Situation • Season 1 • Episode 10

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What makes an airline inspire true fandom in an industry often reduced to price comparisons and schedule convenience? In this fascinating conversation with Andrew Harvell, Manager of Digital Strategy and Optimization at Southwest Airlines, we uncover the unique approach that has earned Southwest loyal customers and industry accolades spanning decades.

"Our secret sauce is our people," Harvell explains, echoing Southwest's co-founder Colleen Barrett. "We are in the hospitality business here at Southwest. We just happen to fly airplanes." This philosophy drives everything from their celebrated "coheart" onboarding process—complete with red carpet walks and music—to their strategic decisions about digital innovation and customer service.

The conversation takes us behind the scenes of Southwest's culture-building machine, revealing how they've created a distinctive experience in an industry where differentiating is notoriously difficult. Perhaps most valuable is Harvell's perspective on balancing tradition with innovation. As Southwest evolves its digital experience and explores AI applications, it's guided by a commitment to maintaining customer trust above all else. "Trust is an absolute premium currency these days," Harvell notes, explaining how every new feature or policy change is evaluated against this standard.

Whether you're managing customer experience in travel, entertainment, or any service industry, you'll find practical wisdom in Southwest's approach to creating genuine connections with customers even when things go wrong. Listen now to discover how Southwest turns ordinary travelers into passionate fans, and consider how their hospitality-first philosophy might transform your own customer relationships.

Recorded Thursday, May 8th, 2025
Host: Damian Bazadona, CEO & Founder, Situation
Guest: Andrew Harvell, Manager of Digital Strategy and Optimization, Southwest Airlines
Producer: Peter Yagecic, Innovation Advisor, Situation

Peter Yagecic:

Thank you and Bazzadana. Our guest today is Andrew Harvell, part of the team at Southwest Airlines that creates innovative digital products and guest experiences. As manager of digital strategy and optimization, Trade tables up everybody. Here's Damian to get us started.

Damian Bazadona:

Let's get right into it. How does Southwest Airlines create fandom around the brand? And you know the special sauce why people choose Southwest and you guys have it like talk about it, yeah.

Andrew Harvell:

It's a, I mean, a super good question, I think, one that you know several books have been written on. Um, obviously, ton of case studies in university kind of settings, um, and I think at its core it's it's kind of best said by, uh, our, our president emeritus and co-founder, colleen Barrett is just our secret sauce, our people. Right, we are in the hospitality business here at Southwest. We just happen to fly airplanes and I think, as kind of historical as that is, it really is true. I think whenever you talk to people who have had positive experiences with Southwest or experiences in general, that's the thing that they usually talk about.

Andrew Harvell:

Obviously, our product kind of speaks for itself. The airline product in general is known to many people, but our people is truly what sets us apart, and that's a flight attendant, a pilot, a ramp agent, a customer service agent at the airport and then obviously all the folks behind the scenes here at headquarters as well. I truly think we hire for those type of people who we can train up in different areas, but we're really looking for a personality type that can continue to be stewards of the brand. Obviously, as a company that's lasted so long in the US, southwest has that as what the secret sauce is. We're hiring for people who are going to carry that torch on of hospitality and it really does resonate with people and obviously when you talk to people at the airport or between trips, that's what really comes back to them for sure.

Damian Bazadona:

What is the talk about? The onboarding process? So you and I we go back. You were at Disney and City Experience. You've been a lot of different awesome organizations. Talk about the onboarding process of just how is it that makes the people so good that you noticed?

Andrew Harvell:

Yeah, I mean I think it goes back to our hiring process even before onboarding, right when you walk into headquarters during a flight attendant hiring event and you can see that there's kind of a different energy in the room. You've got current flight attendants that are interviewing potential candidates, you've got the music that's blasting loud in the lobby that's just hoping to kind of bring the stress down a little bit for the potential employees that are interviewing. For that we call them cohorts internally and I think that's a huge competitive advantage where we're really trying to get a sense of everybody's personality. And that's also true for corporate hiring as well. But I think the flight attendant hiring example is like the best true amalgamation of that. And then when you kind of move along to onboarding, it's truly like the first day with the company.

Andrew Harvell:

We're trying to be as excited and showing you as much about the culture as we can.

Andrew Harvell:

So when you get on the headquarters at 8.30 am on a Monday, we're blasting music with 200 of your new friends that are aligned in the offices of our headquarters.

Andrew Harvell:

We've got what's called the red carpet walk, where all the employees will walk down the red carpet. They're getting cheered, they're getting clapped and then they start their onboarding. And then part of that is they're walking through our headquarters building, which Chris Sloan of Airways Magazine once quoted it, as it's as much of a living, breathing museum for showcasing the culture that Southwest built as it is a corporate office, as you can see behind me this is one of the many offices. We just have tchotchkes everywhere. You can see that the history is embedded in the panes of this building. I really think that's a huge part of onboarding. It gets people excited about the brand, it gets people instantly connected to the history. And then, as you kind of continue your tenure with Southwest, you just hear stories after stories about running into Herb Kelleher, running into Gary Kelly, running into Colleen Barrett, and everybody seems to have a really fun story, especially the ones who were around in the 90s, 2000s, right, and it's really special. It's been really fun to kind of join into the last three years myself.

Damian Bazadona:

Well, look, there's a little proof to the pudding, to what you're talking about, in that we haven't talked about this, but I saw the announcement. Best airline for economy class customer satisfaction by JD Power.

Andrew Harvell:

Is this correct? Yes, sir, yeah, yes sir, got a nice fourth year in a row.

Damian Bazadona:

I also noticed most satisfying economy, air travel experience as well, and there's a whole bunch of other stuff here Number one in airline staff and level of trust extremely impressive. So, building off of that, extremely impressive. How do you manage that? So you guys are very impressive and how do you manage the customer experience as you navigate with the external relationships like airport terminals and the facilities which I would say are probably not classified as amazing experiences, but you are completely reliant on, but you can't control and taking that whole experience and I think I would just qualify all that to say on this webinar are people across sports, theater, travel, entertainment, sort of in similar positions. They have one part of the experience where they're a producer of content but they may not own facility operations or the venue, have one part of the experience where they're a producer of content but they may not own facility operations or the venue. How do you think about that experience, given so many other players and partners are involved?

Andrew Harvell:

Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, super good question and something super relevant. Right, in travel, hospitality, entertainment at large, right, nothing's done kind of in a silo, and we think about that. Certainly Our you know people that are key partners to us, whether it's a team that works on an airport facility side, whether it's a company that does luggage transfer for us at a smaller airport or one that are helping us push wheelchairs at a bigger airport. They're a part of our kind of extended family, right? You look at what our Southwest core values are, which we heavily teach in our leadership development courses. We heavily teach on onboarding.

Andrew Harvell:

One of the key pillars is service of love and LUV, like our stock ticker. But a part of that is practicing hospitality, both for external customers, right, that you're working with and facing if you're an airport employee, or other partners that you work at. We treat our vendors and our partners just like they're part of our family too. So that's really important to us, and part of it is led by the golden rule. You know, treat others the way you want to be treated. And we think about that, of how we treat each other internally as employees, but then also how we treat partners that we work with and then obviously passing that along to customers as well.

Andrew Harvell:

And I think that's a really important part of air travel right when we see that there's so many players that are involved in your day of travel.

Andrew Harvell:

Whether you're calling an Uber to get to the airport, you interface with so many different people at the actual airport and then you check into your hotel at the end of the day. A lot of our research has seen that we're getting compared to not other airlines on that day of travel, but other brands that you're interacting with specifically on the digital side other digital experiences. So we're always thinking about that. If someone orders Starbucks at the airport and they have just a best-in-class app experience, what can we kind of take away from that to leverage to make sure that our day of travel experience is also best in class? So it's been really interesting to us as we kind of explored what the future of our customer and digital experience look like at Southwest Airlines, especially with our product that's continuing to evolve every month at this point, I think that the app experience I think the digital experience at large, I think, is in one of our pre-calls.

Damian Bazadona:

We talked a little bit about this, of like the idea of and I never really thought of it this way that app is a way for you to communicate directly with your consumer in the flyer, through all the chaos that they might face. I mean, I'm right by Newark airport, right, right, that's just, it's bananas right now. But the reality is, when you hold that patron experience relationship, you the, the app is effectively your point of communication to go. Let me help you navigate these other universes that we really don't control, but we're going to try and do our best to make it right for you. How do you let's shift gears a little bit how do you describe the Southwest fan base and I know I'm using the word fans and we use that across a lot of categories, so that's how we view it Some people, radical customers, excited customers, whatever you want to call it but how do you describe the Southwest Airlines fan base? Because you guys really have one and like what makes them unique in the broader travel and hospitality landscape in your mind.

Andrew Harvell:

Yeah, I mean, as you said, I think we're in a really fortunate spot to have such a strong fan base in the airline industry. Right, we're one that's seemingly so transactional. But I think there's kind of two categories that fascinated by kind of the history of the operation of the 10-minute turn, how Herb Keller offered, you know, free bottles of booze to get more people on the planes within our first you know couple years of operation. There's so many great nuggets of history there that I think people are just fascinated by because it was a true bulldog environment in an industry that was not super disruptive in the past. And then you kind of look to our more modern product. Right, what we're flying today I think the best way to describe it it's a value-conscious traveler who appreciates flexibility and with a friendly, unpretentious atmosphere. Right, we've famously have one class of service right. No, first class. We have the same cabin throughout. Currently we're in open seating. We're moving to a signed seating product, but that's still in one cabin classification. And obviously we're moving into sign seating product, but that's still in one cabin classification.

Andrew Harvell:

And obviously we're known for kind of our flexibility in our fares, right. So that's something that we hold really true and we like work into our pricing and there's even an economic effect that the Department of Transportation refers called to the Southwest effect, right. So when we move into a new market, you see fares continue to go down as a whole. You see kind of the pricing structure change for that market in general, and that's something that we're really proud of, right, because we're able to do that with other operational efficiencies like our quick turn times and how we kind of price our fares to get those benefits in there.

Andrew Harvell:

So obviously the airline industry is constantly changing. We're evolving our product and how we kind of think about that and how the traveler is looking at the flight that they purchased today, especially with our other competitors, right. But I think that's really how, the best way to do it it's just value conscious travelers who appreciate flexibility and really enjoy that kind of unpretentious hospitality environment. They're always going to get a joke from the flight attendant, they're always going to have someone joking around with them and when things go wrong we'll take care of them. But it's also just a really fun environment to travel in, especially when you're getting ready for a fun trip too. What?

Damian Bazadona:

are the most effective ways that you. I want to get a little bit into the digital side just quickly. I go back to a quote from many years ago that I heard. In the digital space that effectively was Forrester researched this research that said something to the spirit of as users interact with web experiences. Is these experiences not advertising induced perceptions? They're going to drive brand attitudes. This is like the future of brand. That was many, many moons ago, which is kind of the framework when we started this business. What are the things in the digital space that you're doing on that digital journey that you feel like you're able to like? How does that work with you? I'm just curious and yeah, how does that work from your end of how you're able to turn customers into like fans. What are the little things within that experience that differentiate?

Andrew Harvell:

Yeah, it's a really interesting question, right, because we I mean, ultimately we sell one product at the end of the day, right? So all the things that we're working with on a digital team are highly involved with our other stakeholders across the board, whether that's our loyalty and co-brand credit card team, with our marketing and brand team, our network planning team. So every time we're thinking about that, our kind of core pillars that we come back to as a digital team is just continuing to build trust and propelling that Net Promoters 4.0 up. Obviously, we have other KPIs that we're looking at. You know that's feature dependent, but a lot of the things that we come back to we want to make decisions that are going to continue to maintain that trust of the customer and that can be manifested in different ways.

Andrew Harvell:

We've done a lot of emphasis the last couple years on what we're calling digital service modernization and that's been investing in specific digital technologies that are allowing customers to self-serve more directly if they want the ability to right. We know for a fact that a lot of people do not want to call in. Some do, and that's totally fine. Our customer care team's there to take care of you, but a lot of people want to be able to self-serve. So anything that we're getting a lot of calls or overall the traffic at the airport for we want to be able to ensure that you can self-serve on the app and that just one makes a better experience for us. It saves costs, it helps us, you know, invest those in kind of lower fares and other products, but then it also just builds overall TripNet promoter score because people see that they're able to do things live. If they want to engage with our employees, they absolutely can. We're not shying away from that right, but it does also kind of build that trust over time.

Andrew Harvell:

And then other things that we're looking at is how can we incorporate hospitality and fun into the digital experience? Some ways, you know, bigger than others. Obviously Disney there was much bigger teams when I worked there that was focusing on that. But even at Southwest we're, you know, recently moved our drink coupon program, which we were kind of historically known for receiving those packets in the mail. Obviously that wasn't super adherent towards our sustainability goals.

Andrew Harvell:

So we figured out how to do that in a fun digital way that you know was specifically designed for a fun UI and UX on the flight. Flight attendants could easily recognize it, it could be a fun transaction. They were able to recognize your status and invest in things like that of how you're kind of tracking for your tier status of A-list and A-list preferred. So it's a good blend of kind of building trust with our other stakeholders and make sure that we're adhering towards a lot of the goals that we have across the company, but then also ensuring that we're kind of building hospitality and some fun into the digital experience. And it's obviously hard to do. It's a really big balancing act, right. It's sometimes a little bit more difficult to justify those, but we try to have those conversations in a lot of our different steering groups to make sure that we're still keeping that top of mind right and we spoke earlier you'd referenced because we talked about the voice is playful, human, approachable, and it does.

Damian Bazadona:

It gets lost me a little bit sometimes that you know if travel is both good times and bad times and so you don't know, in the sense of how, why somebody's traveling so a fair number of people on this webinar right now. If you're in the live event business or live experience business, we're trying to tap into people's emotions and we can usually bring our full brand self to the table and travel falls slightly especially air travel falls into different consideration of where someone is in the journey, both in where they're traveling to a funeral or a wedding. Are they within a three-hour delay? There's so many different dynamics that are at play that I'm imagining it's got to be quite complicated to really be you know how you wrap your full brand essence into every interaction. It's got to be complicated, peter. I just want to make sure I know we have questions coming in.

Peter Yagecic:

Yeah, I think we've got some Southwest fans who are here because the questions are coming through. Andrew, this touches a little bit on the fun and the humor that you were talking about. When I think about flying on Southwest, what comes to mind is humor, especially in the in-flight announcements which you referred to. Is humor one of the core values you mentioned, and how do you foster humor in relating to customers and fans? It doesn't feel like the jokes come from corporate HQ, so whether they do or not, I don't know. I don't know if you can tell us, but just how do you find that balance with your cohorts to kind of encourage that humor?

Andrew Harvell:

Yeah, no, I think you're exactly right. I think one of the most fun parts about hearing about a lot of our flight attendant training, customer service, hospitality training is that, yeah, there isn't a script of like here's the eight jokes that you can say. Here's eight jokes that you can't say. A lot of it comes organically from the operation. Hears eight jokes that you can't say. A lot of it comes organically from the operation. So you hear stories about flight attendants that kind of share fun jokes that they did or kind of it organically works and kind of makes a mind of its own and our team does such a great job of saying like here, you know, here's our kind of core brand pillars, but really have fun with it and be yourself.

Andrew Harvell:

So not necessarily humor is a part of our kind of core values, but there's um kind of humility and being yourself is like and trying to bring out that individuality in everybody, right.

Andrew Harvell:

So my favorite ones are like don't take yourself too seriously, keep perspective and then don't be a jerk is three of my favorite ones that are kind of fall under that. How I show up value, uh and and again, yeah, not necessarily like hey, you have to inject humor, cause that's not how everybody kind of works. But if you have it and you by all means show up, but just ultimately be yourself, right? So if you're, you know, if you love talking, you feel I'm learning about people have those interactions when appropriate, at the airport, in flight, over the call center, but then also obviously make sure you're doing your job and show up to being your best self and your best teammate, right? So not necessarily humor, no-transcript. Our training team does such a good job of telling that line of here's all the things that you need to do, but then also here's some areas that you can really have fun with it and be a little bit more flexible. Yeah.

Damian Bazadona:

What are some of the core principles to how you so? I just say that because there's always something wrong in air travel. That's part of the game. So how do you think? But it's, you know, every person's, it's an emergency for everybody. Yeah, whatever's their priority, I get it. How do you think? Are there like core principles? I recognize there's multiple teams within the Southwest, but in your universe, how do you think about it? Are there like core tenets to like most important? Is this the way we think about it, to like most important?

Andrew Harvell:

is this the way we think about it? Yeah, yeah, I mean so on the digital side, a lot of what we develop right is we're thinking about all that upfront when we're writing requirements and working with our technology partners to bring these to life. We have to you know, the airline business is interesting because there's usually 20,000 different use cases that can happen right. Maybe that's a little exaggerated, but we're thinking about that a lot of times upfront when we're doing requirements and sometimes, especially compared to other places I've worked, you have to your initial product that you're shipping has to be a little bit more baked than you know some, maybe other technology companies, because we have to have a more holistic experience and then can iterate from there. And we're always thinking about that of, like, what is a genuine trustful experience? The last thing we want to do is break trust with our customer, because once you lose that trust it's really hard to build it back.

Andrew Harvell:

And then from, I think the operational side, like when we kind of come back to values, a lot of what we instruct our frontline employees who are in cohorts, who are interacting with the customers, is kind of this like semblance of you've got, you know, templates you can work within, but this like semblance of you've got, you know, templates you can work within, but really trying to instill that you can act like an owner.

Andrew Harvell:

You know this is just as much your company as it is our company.

Andrew Harvell:

So there's a lot of kind of emphasis on acting like an owner, choosing to do the right thing, being courageous.

Andrew Harvell:

So you know, when things go wrong they've got kind of certain entitlements that they're allowed to kind of work within and then can go through supervisor approval to go above and beyond. But we do want to equip them with as much of that flexibility as they can because ultimately they're the ones that are talking to that customer face-to-face or over the phone and they're the ones who kind of have to have that empathy and make sure that we're not only thinking about them as a customer. They're, you know, a part of our kind of extended family of Southwest right. So the last thing we want to do is break that trust. Obviously we're working within confines, but I think that's been really fun to hear about from our partners and the customer care team who runs a lot of our contact centers, obviously our ground operations teams who are interfacing face-to-face. So I think really keeping to those kind of core values is really important, both on the corporate side, but then on the frontline side as well.

Peter Yagecic:

Fandom Unpacked is brought to you by Situation, an award-winning marketing agency built for live entertainment that champions the power of unforgettable shared experiences around the world. We offer full marketing and creative services for experience-based brands in live entertainment, attractions, theater, sports, arts and culture, and more. Check us out at SituationInteractivecom. Now back to our Q&A check us out at SituationInteractivecom.

Damian Bazadona:

Now back to our Q&A. Peter, you know I said before if any questions and I kept asking questions. I see there are questions. Do you want to add? There are questions.

Peter Yagecic:

Yeah, here's another one that came in. Andrew, you talked a little bit about the innovations that Southwest kind of pioneered in the industry. Are there any innovations from the Southwest way of doing things that have positively impacted the broader flying ecosystem? What have people lovingly ripped off from Southwest? How have you guys impacted the broader industry?

Andrew Harvell:

Yeah, I mean there's a ton of fun history. There's a book called Nuts which is kind of about like the core hospitality culture at Southwest and how that's kind of permeated through the industry. But I think a couple that come to mind is like the core hospitality culture at Southwest and how that's kind of permeated through the industry. But I think a couple that come to mind is like the turn times, like used to be something that was, you know, a lot of flights were historically like really widely banked so there was a lot of time between when the aircraft arrived to the airport and then when it pushed off for the next flight. Southwest was a huge pioneer in what was called the 10 minute turn right. So saying like hey, we can utilize these aircraft a lot more ensuring, if we flip the aircraft quickly and keep them at the gate as little as possible, we can get a lot more yield from these and then in turn get more revenue and profitability. Obviously, every airline kind of does it a little bit differently, but you've seen that industry-wide of those turn times continue to kind of reduce and those banks get smaller.

Andrew Harvell:

And that was one thing that Southwest was very early to the kind of industry on, I think, simplified aircraft fleet.

Andrew Harvell:

You've seen a lot of carriers in Europe do that, where they're running just a Boeing fleet or just an Airbus fleet and then specifically with us, the 737, right. So that's been a huge area that we're able to, you know, train pilots on one type of aircraft. Our technical operations mechanics out in the hangars are able to like just learn one type of aircraft, so that keeps our overall operational efficiency a lot more simple right. And then another one that has been kind of, you know, changing and transient in the history is the elimination of kind of like change and cancel fees and how that's kind of permeated and changed throughout time. That was one thing that Southwest was first to market with and then something that we've seen kind of seen evolve over time with a lot of competitors and then even ourselves, of how we're kind of looking at changing, cancel fees and travel credits, right. So it's been very interesting to kind of see who adopts what and then who doesn't adopt what right, because it just may not work with their business model.

Damian Bazadona:

Well, so, as travel continues to evolve, what's on the horizon in your view in terms of next generation of airline travel? Yeah, what does it look, look like? When and how do you manage that, against the legacy of the of your past, like the legacy ran into a new modern world, is going to change the customer experience? I'm assuming a lot of different pressure from a lot of different from what the overall market's doing. Just get like, what is, what is in your mind, what's the future which we'd be looking at?

Andrew Harvell:

I mean, uh, I mean, I think I think it'd be remiss to not to bring up ai, right? I think that's something that we're all keeping a really close monitor on of like how is that going to affect the broader travel industry, hospitality, entertainment? I think at the end of the day, we are a again, we're a hospitality company that just happens to fly airplanes, right? So I think, as long as we're keeping those core values, we're making kind of strategic decisions to evolve the product, because we the one thing we don't want to do is just kind of sit on our laurels and just watch the rest of the industry at large kind of evolve without us, but at the same time keeping true to like kind of what our core values are. So if we're using AI and we're using technology to evolve our airport experience, we're doing it so that way we can make the customer experience more efficient. But then also we can have the employees do what they do best and that's create those hospitality intimate moments, instead of treating it kind of like a butcher shop where you're just taking a number and having these 30-second transactions so that they can move on to the next person. And I think, like broader at large, I mean, there's so much possibility with travel and AI, and I think we've. You know, when the larger kind of dot-com bubble was moving up and you saw TripAdvisor and Yelps kind of come into big prominence.

Andrew Harvell:

I think the opposite is kind of going to happen with travel, where people are going to be using generative AI to not only develop itineraries but make them very tailored and specific to you as AI continues to evolve right. So kind of flipping on this coin, how people have kind of turned into planning travel where they say here's the top 20 things to do in Dallas, texas. I'm going to kind of sift through what would maybe be more interesting to me. Now I can say there's, you know, 100,000 things to do in Dallas, texas or in Texas at large.

Andrew Harvell:

I wonder what AI says of like knowing what my interests are, what things I could do, you know what restaurants I might like, what tourist attractions I make like, and I know that Southwest flies in a love field which is a little bit closer to downtown, so that makes the travel even more efficient for me. I think how AI is going to be shaping how people plan and kind of look at that very top funnel of travel is going to be fascinating. And then obviously, on the agent side right, what's going to be happening with our kind of contact centers at large in travel, in hospitality in general is going to be very interesting to see how people have those handoffs from an agentic AI to an actual person and how we're using that to look at the overall kind of larger efficiencies. It's something that I think every single company is looking at very deeply and seeing kind of who moves quickly and who's kind of maybe a little bit longer to wait to see what happens. Maybe very interesting.

Damian Bazadona:

Just out of curiosity, what is the relationship with a customer when they're not flying with you? Like, how do you think about you build this fandom? People fly so many times a year and I know I remember the old commercials the you can, what is it? You want to get away? Whatever that? What? The old spot which is it stuck with me. But what is it? How do you view the relationship when someone's not flying? Like, how do you guys think about you?

Andrew Harvell:

keep a connective tissue with folks yeah, I mean, I think that's what our, our brand team does so well is these? These bigger marketing campaigns are always keeping southwest top of mind for people of when I want to start planning my next trip. I know that I can, you know, reliably plan on southwest to transport my family there, transport my golf clubs there, whatever you're traveling with, and make sure that we're just top of mind for the booking curve and then a lot of out-of-home stuff like our loyalty program and co-brand credit card or people kind of indirectly interacting with our brand every time they swipe their credit card or building up those points. They can start planning that vacation to Hawaii for spring break that they've been talking about for the last two years. And I think that's kind of where obviously we don't want to be too, too intrusive but make sure that we're top of mind.

Andrew Harvell:

I think one of the interesting competitive advantages of Southwest is that we're the number one carrier in 24 of the top 50 US markets which again, when you think about those kind of broken down in cities, that's a huge representation of where we're the number one carrier in those cities. So we're likely going to have the best and most advantageous schedule for a lot of those places that people are looking for vacation, being, you know, predominantly a leisure airline with large business presence. But I think that's one thing that we want to continue to maintain and that's usually manifest more in a lot of the brand campaigns. We're, you know, not doing as much kind of like stadium sponsorships maybe as some other kind of competitors in the travel industry, but I think that's kind of where we've historically kind of operated, which has been really fun.

Damian Bazadona:

I feel like you know, as someone who represents a fair number of sports, arts, cultural experiences across the globe, I mean I feel like there should. I wish there was more synergy between the airline marketing and the destinations and entertainment attractions themselves, because they're a pull to get people there, yet they kind of live, the way they're marketed, almost in silos. We have budgets over here doing this, the airlines are doing this and even the hotels are doing this, and I oftentimes feel like, oh my god, we could make one plus one plus one equals 17. If we do it, if we do it, if there's another way to think about it uh, yeah, I think you see that happening a little bit too.

Andrew Harvell:

where there's, you know, depending on what, which market we're looking at, whether it's it's demand or just overall kind of brand growth, we're starting to see more of that investment and kind of that like mid-level marketing of like doing specific stuff, like at Denver with the Colorado Rockies, right, or we're launching a vacations product here soon and like partnering really closely with the city of Orlando to like work on the larger vacations product that are looking at, kind of a bundling strategy versus just offering a flight ticket, so kind of a bundling strategy versus just offering a flight ticket. So, yeah, I think it's a super good point because there's so much opportunity there with some of these bigger markets.

Damian Bazadona:

Oh yeah, Peter.

Peter Yagecic:

Yeah, well, just kind of riffing on that kind of collaboration between entertainment and transportation and travel. We got a question that came in that says situation has such a good perspective on entertainment. Thank you for that. What are the areas where hospitality, travel and entertainment bump up against each other?

Andrew Harvell:

no-transcript, where we run what's called a point-to-point system, where we're trying to get you from point A to point B a lot quicker versus a hub and spoke where you have to go through Dallas-Fort Worth or go through Atlanta, and that's been a huge part of, again, why we're 24 of those 50 markets where the number one carrier and most of those markets will give you a good chance at having a nonstop flight to somewhere.

Andrew Harvell:

I think the number is in the low 70s of. You know most cities can get you to another city in a nonstop flight against restaurants, bars, you know, broadway shows, you know sightseeing tours, museums, where we're not obviously as saturated because you're just deciding if you want to book a flight with us or potentially, you know, maybe a bus or a train. But I think, yeah, for us it's always been important of like keeping that operational efficiency really high, because when things go wrong, whether it's on a leisure trip, a business trip, you know something other than that. You want to spend as little amount of time as transiting there as possible. So that's kind of what I think the advantages of our point-to-point network is. It affords us that fast travel, overall time, instead of having to like do you know, kind of multi-leg transits.

Peter Yagecic:

There's a couple of questions that have come in around a similar theme, and I just want to pick one that I'd love to hear you speak to. You know there's lots of change happening in the industry and there are so many different digital touch points that consumers interact with when they travel that make up their perception of what Southwest is, what that experience means, even if it's not happening on your site or on your app. Was that part of the reason that Southwest decided to show flight options on platforms like Google Flights in 2024? How has that change, or other changes, impacted your business?

Andrew Harvell:

Yeah, it's a super good question. I think we historically looked at our distribution kind of like a direct-to-consumer model where people were coming to the website so they could get the lowest possible fare and it worked well for us for many, many years. But I think, just as the shopper and the overall customer is now looking and travel, they're shopping and approaching it totally different. So again, kind of looking at, is this kind of true to our core or is this something that we need to kind of advance into and get with the modern times? Quote unquote and that was something where we just found a lot more people were coming to that Google Flights and Expedia distribution channel and looking at all the other kind of pricing options and we didn't want to be behind the curve of not getting that distribution model. And it's been very advantageous for us because it opens us up to a whole new skew of customers who maybe weren't looking to us to book immediately but then saw that the fare was $20 or $30 cheaper and then you know, they go.

Andrew Harvell:

I'd love to try flying out with Southwest. So I think it's been good for our overall distribution strategy but then also, as you look at getting more people into our loyalty program, showing them that we've got a best-in-class one with a really great valuation for our points, something that we're trying to continually convince customers on of. Hey, it's not only a one-off thing. You can actually build some really good value here and hopefully then your next vacation is free or subsidized right. Yeah, your next vacation is free or subsidized right, yeah. But it was a strategic decision that a lot of our team and distribution network, planning, marketing, all kind of talked deeply about and ultimately we wanted to, you know, continue to evolve the product versus, you know, kind of wrestle our laurels with direct-to-consumer.

Peter Yagecic:

So here's one that came in. In the world of selling tickets, which is complicated, even in the best of times, it can feel like you only hear from customers when things don't go smoothly. How do you actively seek out feedback from customers so you can incorporate the wins as well as the to-do list?

Andrew Harvell:

I mean I think you're right, we certainly hear from people when things don't go right. But no, I mean I think we're a huge metric of ours is not using NetPro Motorsport both for on time flights but then also for disrupted flights? We can, you know, figure out when things inevitably go wrong, because, as you guys said, they always somehow do in air travel. Overall experience. But we are constantly surveying, both on our kind of digital storefront but then also looking at kind of like post-trip surveys too and seeing what we can continue to improve on and kind of where we're sitting in comparison to the rest of the industry. And again, what are some strategic areas that we can invest in?

Andrew Harvell:

Again, us being a low-cost carrier, we're not always going to be the first to market with a lot of kind of cutting-edge innovations, but we've historically been very strategic in what we do invest in making sure it's a good product. So, for example, we kind of looked at an overall category of modernization the last few years of expanding bigger bins for the overhead so more people can carry on bags, investing in in-seat power, upgraded Wi-Fi we're moving to a kind of new seating product overall, and that was done, again, very strategically to look at. What are our customers valuing from kind of an overall trip net promoter score, and how do we continue to win some of that share of customers, you know, when price and schedule are pretty similar to our other competitors? But I mean, yeah, we always have to be surveying, both from, you know, kind of individual interactions, like, uh, when you call into our contact center, but then also like broader trip net promoter score, looking at like how we're just, you know, when things do go well, how are people kind of looking at it. And we've got a great team.

Andrew Harvell:

That's kind of an overall kind of center of excellence for a lot of that like surveying and overall analytics, both from product analytics, digital analytics and all that stuff, so journey analytics. So yeah, it's super, super important for how we quantify success and also how we invest in features for the future, right? So if that's going to move the needle on that net promoter score, maybe it's worth us investing in it, even if it's not, you know, creating a ton of top line revenue. Yeah.

Damian Bazadona:

Well, I I last question I have is you worked in many different facets of the the experiences business from airlines and Disney's, so you know, you know been a lot of them. What's one piece of advice that you think is universally applicable to these types of brands that you've learned on the front lines of sort of seeing? Is there like in terms of for all the people on this webinar right now that are across different live experience businesses of whatever, is there any like piece of advice you would give all of them based on what you've seen and learned in terms of how they're creating fandom?

Andrew Harvell:

Yeah, I mean, I think one thing that I like implore, with my team and a lot of our peers is just going out and seeing the operation firsthand I think from a corporate employee, that's the most important thing to see how customers, guests, fans are actually experiencing the product firsthand. Just create so much empathy for headquarters employees wherever you're at, whether that's an office building in New York or you know by an airport in Dallas like I am, you know by an airport in Dallas, like I am. I think that's just hugely important to continue to have a pulse on that, not just see it through surveying right, like we talked about. Surveying is hugely important for us to get that kind of macro level data. But it's also so important to get out there and experience it yourself. And obviously, when I was, you know, at Disney in particular, one of the most fun parts is I get to go to the Magic Kingdom and see how people are interacting with the app. But also, you know, we get out and fly a ton to see how people are using the in-flight Wi-Fi, how the you know flight attendants are interacting with the customers, and it's hugely important to see how we are kind of shaping a lot of those business cases that we're creating back at headquarters, and I think another one is just continuing to maintain that direct connection to the customer right.

Andrew Harvell:

So surveying, understanding what the actual pain points are, even if you're creating a business case, you know, doing kind of some preeminent user testing with customers before you even run something out to market, is really important.

Andrew Harvell:

And then just coming back I think I've said it a few times right, like keeping that trust with your core fan, your core customer, is so, so important In this age when some travel can be seen as incredibly transactional right and brands have to do more work than ever to kind of show that brand kind of differentiation and equity, I think trust is an absolute premium currency these days. And making sure that a lot of the strategic decisions that you're making are all based on trust at the core right Because the second, you know customers are not dumb fans, are not dumb right when they feel disingenuous money grabs happening, that can instantly break a lot of trust. And that's the last thing that we you know any of us would want to do as we're looking to kind of continue to build out our companies. So I think that's one thing that we all continue to come back to is asking ourselves is this something that's a genuine experience for the customer and something that would keep their trust right?

Damian Bazadona:

Right, andrew, thank you. You know, not only are you smart at what you do, but you bring a calmness and a kindness to what's often a pretty high pressure business, which I think is an amazing trait to keep. I appreciate that.

Andrew Harvell:

There's always a crisis in the airline industry, so we take it with the punches and try to look at what the next positive problem solve is.

Damian Bazadona:

You're good at it, though Not everyone's good at it. I appreciate it.

Peter Yagecic:

That's going to do it for this episode of Fandom Unpacked the podcast. If you liked what you heard, please be sure to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Find out how to join us live for an upcoming recording at SituationLivecom slash fan. We'll see you next time, true believers.