Since their inception in 1929, Hawaiian Airlines (HA) has continually grown to become major player throughout the Pacific. In 2013 HA finished that year with their “sixth consecutive year of profitability and a record passenger count of 9.95 million.” (Hawaiian Airlines, 2014) By the end of 2014 HA will have a fleet of “three ATR-42s, 18 B717s, 10 B767s, and 19 A330s.” (Hawaiian Airlines, 2014) This young fleet will continue carrying passengers on roughly 212 daily jet flights to “20 domestic and international destinations in the Pacific region” for the foreseeable future. (About Hawaiian, 2014) So much positive business news however is often balanced out with the negative. Luckily for HA their positives largely outweigh the negative business aspects. Because HA has operated so effectively and efficiently for the past six years, it’s hard to justify changes to their current business plan. 2014 is shaping up to be yet another big year for HA keeping in line with the positive business trends of the past. If past profitability has any influence on the future then HA seems to be in a great position to remain profitable for the foreseeable future. When looking at the measures of airline profitability the Revenue Passenger Mile (RPM) and Available seat miles (ASM) are usually the go to measureable items. Figure 1 offers a visual comparison of the first six months of 2014 compared to the first six months of 2013. Highlighted is the RPM and ASM for Hawaiian’s total
The United States carries over one third of the globe’s total traffic, where Over 1.5 billion passengers fly annually. Over the past 20 years, air travel has grown at an average of about 5% per year, the reason for annual change is usually differences in economic growth, and of course other environmental factors, such as the current war. As a rule, the annual growth in air travel has been about twice the annual growth in GDP. Deregulation, liberalization, and competition have essentially altered the management strategies and practices of airlines. Productivity improvements and cost management have been two of the greatest concerns for US airlines for the past twenty years. As a whole, the airline industry must continue to improve their specialization in terms of fleet utilization, pricing and revenue management, and schedule optimization.
To grow a profitable airline with a passion for excellence, our customers, our people, and the spirit of Hawaii.
JetBlue Airways, the latest entrant in the airlines industry has gone through the initial stages (entrepreneurial and collectivity) of the organizational life cycle rapidly under the successful leadership of David Neelman. JetBlue Airways is currently in the formalization stage of the life cycle where in it needs to create procedures and control systems to effectively manage its growth. Also as it proceeds to grow further to reach the elaboration stage, JetBlue needs to continue to align itself with the environment in order to maintain its sustained growth.
United Airlines and Continental Airlines, two major airlines companies, agreed to a merger that would create the world’s largest airline. Such important deal has a lot of problems to be dealt with, from technical, for example how to put the companies databases together, to more fundamental, like how the company should be ruled.
This paper will cover information about Hawaiian airlines. Founded in 1929, now in its 87th year of consecutive service, Hawaiian Airlines is Hawai 'i 's biggest and longest-serving airline, as well as the largest provider of passenger air service from its primary visitor markets on the U.S. mainland. Specifically, research to describe the airline, its aircraft fleet, route structure and number of employees will be provided. Information to determine whether Hawaiian airlines is organized as a corporation with private ownership or is owned by the national government will be given and discussed. Also, a brief description of the governmental agency or authority responsible for regulation of safety, as well as the certification requirements and minimum flight time for the commercial airline flight deck crewmembers. The governmental agency or authority that is empowered to regulate the routes flown, rates charged, and other economic aspects of the airline’s flight operations will be identified and discussed. Information will be given on the extent to which the airline’s fleet consists of owned vs. leased aircraft. All accidents involving an aircraft operated by that airline since 1/01/2000 will be identified to include the probable cause of each. Lastly, labor relationships of the airline’s pilots and maintenance personnel based in the airline’s home nation will be discussed; plus, any
pilots, and new next generation aircraft acquisitions to carry the airline proudly into the next 75
While it is difficult, to some extent, to evaluate the success of a merger that is only just now entering its final implementation phases, it is known that the objective of that merger was to use the larger route network to attract more business, and that the combined airline would also extract cost savings as the result of increased operational efficiency. The airline had struggled in 2009, with its sales declining, but it recovered in 2010 and 2011. Sales last year were $33.678 billion, up from $21.068 billion the year before. In the past two years, the company has turned a profit, going from $253 million in net income in FY2010 to $840 million in net income in FY2011. Some of this improvement may stem from the impact of the merger. However, the airline industry is highly cyclical, and the past two years have represented economic improvement. Likewise, the losses the company faced in FY2008 and FY2009 were as much the result of the economic downturn as they were internal business factors.
American airline industry is steadily growing at an extremely strong rate. This growth comes with a number economic and social advantage. This contributes a great deal to the international inventory. The US airline industry is a major economic aspect in both the outcome on other related industries like tourism and manufacturing of aircraft and its own terms of operation. The airline industry is receiving massive media attention unlike other industries through participating and making of government policies. As Hoffman and Bateson (2011) show the major competitors include Southwest Airlines, Delta Airline, and United Airline.
1. There are a few trends in the US airline industry. One is consolidation, wherein existing players merge in an attempt to lower their costs and generate operating synergies. The most recent major merger was the United Continental merger, which is still an ongoing affair, but has created the largest airline in the United States by market share (Martin, 2012). Another trend is towards low-cost carriers. In the US, Southwest has been a long-running success and JetBlue a strong new competitor, but in other countries this business model has proven exceptionally successful. The third major trend is the upward trend in jet fuel prices, and the increasing importance that this puts on hedging fuel prices and capacity management (Hinton, 2011).
The domestic airline industry transports 711 million souls a year. That translates into a staggering $709 billion a year revenue flow (statista.com). One firm, named Southwest Airlines, accounts for 18.3 percent of that market. That 18.3 percent market share places Southwest at the number two spot, behind American Airlines. How does Southwest Airlines successfully compete and thrive in this environment? How do they differentiate themselves from the hoards of legacy carriers? Southwest Airlines encapsulates its strategy in a simple statement: “Meet customers’ short-haul travel needs at fares competitive with the cost of automobile travel (Grant, p.23). As a pioneer in low cost air travel, Southwest has successfully brought down airfares through its short route point-to-point business model, “no-frills” service, single flight strategy, and highly productive employees (Cederholm, 2014). In the following analysis we will investigate Southwest Airlines standing within the industry as a whole and their differentiation models driving success. We will also identify the firm’s competitive advantages as they relate to similar firms in the industry.
Launched just 8 years ago, today, the Jetstar Group consists of a network of value-based air carriers that deliver high quality air passenger services for budget-minded travelers across Australia, New Zealand and the Asia Pacific region. Beginning with just 400 employees, the company currently employs more than 7,000 people and carries about 20 million passengers a year. To gain some insights into how the Jetstar Group achieved this impressive growth in such a short amount of time, this paper provides a review of the relevant literature concerning the air passenger industry in general and the business strategy used by the Jetstar Group in particular. A summary of the research and recommendations for this company are provided in the paper's conclusion.
JetBlue Airways, the latest entrant in the airlines industry has gone through the initial stages (entrepreneurial and collectivity) of the organizational life cycle rapidly under the successful leadership of David Neelman. JetBlue Airways is currently in the formalization stage of the life cycle where in it needs to create procedures and control systems to effectively manage its growth. Also as it proceeds to grow further to reach the elaboration stage, JetBlue needs to continue to align itself with the environment in order to maintain its sustained growth.
This paper will review the case study of Delta Airlines which was suffering like all its competitors with rising fuel costs which averaged anywhere between 30 to 50 percent of its total operating costs. This paper will answer six questions which will help identify what the company did to handle the high cost of fuel. The questions that I will answer will include the following.
The four cost components of the airline industry – fuel, landing fees, aircraft leasing and taxes - has made operating Lucky Air in a productive manner a constant challenge. Even though the company has a high competitive advantage being linked to Hainan Airlines, it still needed to upgrade its business strategy on a regular basis to ensure maintaining the lead they had over the other airlines. The company like all its counterparts face a myriad of restraints including heavily regulated governmental laws, limitation to price reduction, a low potential for rapid expansion due to government restrictions and heavy taxes.
With 1988 operating income of $801 million on a revenue of $8.55 billion, American Airlines, Inc. (American), principal subsidiary of Dallas/Fort Worth-based AMR Corporation, was the largest airline in the United States. At year-end 1988 American operated 468 aircraft on 2,200 flights daily to 151 destinations in the United States, Bermuda, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, France, Great Britain, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain, Switzerland, Venezuela, and West Germany.