Airline Fleet Planning For An Airline Company Essay

The airline industry has long attempted to segment the air travel market in order to effectively target its constituents. The classic airline model consists of First Class, Business Class and Economy, and the demographics that make up the classes have both similarities and differences to the other classes. For instance there may be similarities between business class travellers on a particular flight, but they will not all be travelling for the same reason. An almost-universal characteristic of air travel is that customers do not fly for the sake of flying; the destination is the important element and the travel is a by-product, a means-to-an-end that involves the necessity of an aircraft that gets the customer from point A to point B.

In this strategic analysis report I as senior manager of Jetstar have developed PESTEL analysis, SWOT analysis, competitive analysis, created new mission and value

According to Greyhound, it takes a total of sixty-five hours to drive from New York to Los Angeles by bus with no transfer (“Choose your outgoing trip,” 2016). The same trip with Southwest Airlines takes approximately eight hours (“Select Departing Fight,” 2016). In 1971 Southwest Airlines became an official airline company when they won a U.S Supreme Court ruling and purchased three Boeing 737 (Thomas, Peteraf, Gamble &Strickland, 2016, p. c-341). As of 2014 Southwest’s fleet has grown to an astonishing 665 aircraft that recorded 902 thousand flights in 2013 (Thomas, et al., 2016, p. c-341). By evaluating Southwest’s industry maturation, strategies, their success in the sector it will be possible to make recommendations for Southwest 's future growth.

The risk of entry into the airline industry by potential competitors is low due to the “liberalization of market access, a result of globalization. According to the IATA (International Air Transport Association), about 1,300 new airlines were established in the last 40 years,” (Cederholm, 2016). The cost structure of businesses in an industry is a determinant of rivalry. In the Airlines Industry, fixed costs are high, because before the organization can make any sales, they must invest in air crafts, fuel and service employees. These items come attached with hefty price tags. Industries that require such enormous amounts of start-up capital as predicted by many analysts

In this assignment I was assigned the task of comparing 2 different airlines, one being a full service carrier and the other being a lost cost carrier, from United States of America, namely the Delta Airlines and South West Airlines. The points of comparison were market strategies, financial benefits, load factors, contrasting yield, revenues and passenger/cargo loads. The analysis was done on the business model and a long term strategy. Through this it would be known that which airline is performing better than the other. The disruption of air travel through various incidents like the terrorist attacks and global downturn, which can be considered as economic, political and social conditions, effect airlines adversely.

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 airline industry has seen drastic changes since September 11, 2001. The government ordered a complete shutdown for three days of not only all commercial aircraft but such carriers as domestic flights and emergency aircraft. For days after September 11th, all aircraft stayed on the ground. Even military aircraft had to receive special clearance to fly. In a ripple effect, the entire economy of the United States and the world was put on hold. The New York Stock Exchange shut its doors because of the attacks on the towers of the World Trade Center.

Airlines Industry is large and growing, it is also the most fiercely competitive sector. It facilitates international trade, world economy growth, tourism and international investment. The airline industry has over time with the use of modern technology been able to take advantage of the short haul, high frequency and gained a competitive advantage over other forms of travel, such as buses and railroad travel. Additionally, the airline industry still holds the market for global travel at a low cost and convenient way to travel. The aviation industry gives a good contribution to the GDP which includes the following: airline services, general aviation, civil airport operations, aircraft manufacturing, and

3,4- The Airline industry and the market The airline industry is large, specially in the United States, mainly due to the “ Deregulation” of the industry. In 1938, the Civil Aeronautics Board was created to control the growth of the air transportation industry. This board had the authority to control entry, exit, prices and methods of competition. In the late 1970 this structure was found inefficient and in 1978 deregulation took place. Due to the deregulation of the industry competition intensified, prices dropped, and the number of people travelling increased. Many new companies emerged and regional airlines saw deregulation as an opportunity to expand. Due to the rise in competition, by 1986 mergers started to take place and in 1987 64.8% of the market was controlled by the four largest airlines. The demand for air travel is determined mainly by price, studies revealed that half of the leisure travellers and on quarter of business travellers did not have a preference for a particular airline, which means that prices determined the

Airlines use a formula of combining their yield and inventory costs to determine ticket prices. While it is imperative to focus on the idea of being profitable, the focus is to maximize the cost of the flight revenue. One huge factor that encourages an increase in the cost of tickets relates to a customer ordering a ticket close to the departing date, define this as a risk factor because they need to make up for all unsold seats. A high percentage of the revenue is dedicated to overhead costs such as fuel and labor. When a ticket price is higher with one airline than the other, the customer interprets this as being an excessive cost. The demand is greatly affected by the external market

This paper discusses the external economic factors affecting the strategic decision of airline industry and how this decision in turn, affect the market forecast of the aircraft manufacturing industry. Various business issues affect airlines operation either directly and indirectly, and

In examining the history of aviation in the U.S. and the development of the airlines, it is clear that the Federal Government played a vital role in the development of both. Historical records clearly show that this involvement by the Federal Government was critical in getting them established and in helping to develop them into the globally dominant enterprises they are today. Furthermore, it can be easily argued that U.S. aviation as a whole, and the airlines in particular, would not be where they are today without this direct involvement by the Federal Government and some of the very specific actions that it has taken to keep them relevant and competitive during the most dire of times. The Federal Government ensured that U.S. aviation and its airlines would develop and achieve a worldwide leadership role by becoming involved in three major ways: through funding, legislation, and policy setting.

The growth of airline industry in any country is directly proportional to its GDP growth; the greater the business activity, the more air travel and the higher the GDP of the country. The demand

Classic Airlines consists of 375 aircraft that travel to 240 cities more than 2300 times per day with a workforce of 32,000 personnel. Classic Airlines’ revenue was in excess of $8.7 billion last year bringing in a $10 million dollar profit and establishing the airline as the fifth largest air travel company in the world. Despite good sales and profits, Classic Airlines has been receiving harsh criticism from their customers resulting in a 10% decrease in profit shares, reduction in customer loyalty, 19% drop in rewards customers, 21% reduction in flights and the lowest morale seen in recent years. Classic Airlines remains optimistic about customer flight travel but must find