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Managerial Accounting Case

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Case Study in Managerial accounting

Case 1:
Southwest Airlines

Part A : General Information

Company Name: Southwest Airlines Co.
Company is traded on the New York Stock Exchange trade market (NYSE) with symbol LUV.
Corporate Headquarters are located at the physical address: 2702 Love Field Drive, Dallas, Texas 75235.
Corporate Web Site: http://www.southwest.com.
Corporate Web Site for business travelers: http://www.swabiz.com/

Industry Classification

Company operates in the Industrial Sector – Services, and Industry – Regional Airlines. According to the Standard Industrial Classification System (SIC), company belongs to the industry group 451: Air
Transportation, Scheduled, and Air Courier, and particularly to the …show more content…

Over the years, company sustained low operation costs and tickets prices following well-developed strategy. Among other measures, it was able to keep prices low by flying only one airplane type, minimizing service and maintenance expenses, and convincing employees to cut gate turn-around times and make the airline more efficient (Fitzpatrick, 2005).
Southwest does not use the standard, traditional "hub and spoke" flight routing system, accepted by most of the major airlines, preferring instead the "Point to Point" system, performing more than 3,200 flights a day (most of them are direct flight).
Currently, Southwest does not serve any destinations outside the United States, but it is planning to begin international services or ticket international flights in 2009 (Wikipedia, 2008). The company has established a code sharing partnership with just a single airline on the USA market – ATA Airlines, and the plans of international expansion were partially based on this partnership. However, in March 2008, ATA Airlines declared bankruptcy and filed for Chapter 11 protection after it lost a key military charter contract in the middle of skyrocketing fuel prices, leaving Southwest Airlines alone (Dance, 2008).
In terms of the captured US market share, Southwest Airlines are the second largest air carrier on the domestic market.

Part B: Cost Behavior

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