American Airlines Case Study

With operating income of $801 million and revenue of $8.55 billion, American Airlines was the largest airline in United States as of 1988. As Airline Deregulation Act changed the environment of airline competition, American Airlines had to make some radical changes in its business. Because deregulation made the market more competitive than ever, American Airlines still has many strategical and tactical decisions to make in order to be one step ahead of its competitors. Although there are many issues that airline companies deal with in order to create competitive advantage such as costs, route structuring, distribution channels, customer service and marketing activities like loyalty programs, the most important decisions are to be made regarding revenue management activities.

If Southwest decided that they needed to increase their revenue they would have to start by raising the prices of their tickets. The need for increased revenue would need to be passed on to the consumers’. When a ticket price is higher with one airline than the other, the customer

Good hubs, loyalty programs, strong brand image, the largest airline fleet, good maintenance and infrastructure standard, are just to name a few. The regions dominant U.S. carrier came along with the company’s innovative mind to buy routes that encourages spreading hubs in the most tourist attracted places. As hubs increase rewards become broader redeeming meaningful awards as you fly across the globe with American. American Airlines AAdvantage program awards miles and Elite Qualifying Dollars for every airline affiliated with the oneworld alliance. The many relationships with numerous car rental companies, hotel brands and cruise lines is what set them above the rest. Along with captivating that title they spread their brand image strongly from terminal kiosks, interior seats and logo to website along with the plane’s finish. The company recently redesigned their logo taking a turn from an American image moving towards the American spirit. The reason behind the change was being a global flight servicer the old logo based on just American but also still portraying America without becoming blindly patriotic. There’s over 959 planes in service and 247 on back order bringing the company to the largest operator of aircraft in the world. It operates the A321 aircraft which is the largest fleet but not being limited they operate the A319 fleet, Boeing 737 Next Generation, and much more. Furthermore, increasing the amount of passengers carried increasing the amount of revenue created for the company’s

Anna Zhou E Period Linsdell AP Economics: Predatory Pricing and American Airlines This semester in AP Economics, we learned about different pricing strategies, both legal and illegal, that companies use. One in particular, is predatory pricing. Predatory pricing is a strategy businesses use to target competitors and drive them out of the market, along with creating barriers to entry for new businesses. In America, engaging in predatory pricing can lead to antitrust claims against a business; however, it would have to be proven that the business is lowering prices with an ulterior motive of establishing a monopoly and driving competitors out of the market.

Berry, S., & Jia, P. (2010, August). Tracing the Woes: An Empirical Analysis of the Airline Industry. American Economic Association, 2(3), 1-43. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25760397

Southwest has been projected as a low-cost airline and has been a source of inspiration to other low-cost airlines because of its successful pricing strategies. The company has targeted middle-class society as its potential customers and has adopted variable-price as another pricing strategy. The company has also introduced innovative programs and offer incentives along with discounts to attract a larger customer base under its variable cost pricing strategy (Bhasin,

Spirit Airlines is actually an economical carrier dominating the industry and it enthusiastically utilizes contributory revenues. Spirit brands itself an Ultra Low Cost Carrier (ULCC) and epitomizes floating on the low-cost. The low-cost and “pleased with it” reaction is now part of Spirit ’s no advertising, marketing cachet. The company was founded in 1964 as Clippert Trucking Company and is incorporated in Michigan. Spirit prides itself on having a few of minimum fares within the air service activity. Spirit further displays itself as a airline that enables customers to decide on precisely what they need to pay related additional products and services such as bags, advance seating option, and snacks. This pricing policy has reached a contentious

Small business customers and leisure travelers were the ones benefited the most from American’s new fare structure. Previously, small business customers who does not have the power and volume to negotiate with airline companies for discounted deals had to pay higher rates for first-class or coach tickets. American’s new cost structure reduced the full coach fares which allowed small business customers to purchase flight tickets at cheaper prices more conveniently. Leisure travelers, unlike business travelers, have more flexibility in terms of travel dates, thus allowing them to take advantage of the advance-purchase discounts and Saturday-night stay discounts under the new fare system.

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).

Market structure can be defined as patterns of behaviour by enterprises in an effort to adjust to the markets in which they operate (buy or sell). Pricing strategies and collusive behaviour mergers are a few dimensions of market conduct. It is the industry norm for a legacy carrier to offer service to most popular destinations; Delta reducing routes to a similar schedule as the low-cost airlines is not an option in the multi-billion dollar industry. In order to gain market share from low-cost airlines, Delta must create a value proposition that differentiates itself from its competitors. Many customers will pay a premium if the level of service provided is higher than the low-cost, no-frills

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.

At the onset of the airline industry in the United States, major network airlines were the sole providers of air travel. This multifaceted industry was a difficult industry to break into as a consequence of “sophisticated customer segmentation, hub-and spoke models and costly information systems for reservations, fare wars and intense competition” (Thompson 2008). Shrinkage in airline ticket prices augmented the demand for airline travel. Many markets were simply deserted or over-looked by major network airlines; this is a region a fresh “second tier of service providers” could enter into. This endeavor proved to provide a consumer savings of billions per year. Thus in June of 1971, after a tumultuous battle with other Texas-based

A drop in fares has been the best result of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. It has been the impetus for the increase in the number of flights, which in turn has spurred a drive for greater safety in airlines. But with the current airline market, this development has given us one negative. Since ticket prices have dropped to new lows, the realities of an industry which operates on such economies of scale dictates that only a few competitors have the capacity to operate within the market. This is not the desired effect of either political side on this issue, but it is an economic necessity with the environment that has been created, very similar to that of public utilities and phone companies.

The Airline industry has experienced continual problems with rising costs with both fuel and maintenance which has caused them to increase their fees to the consumers to pay for those rising costs. This paper will help explain what an airline such as Delta does to help alleviate such costs without forcing its consumers to flip the bill through high fees that consist of tickets, baggage fees and food. The costs of doing business in aviation today have spiraled out of control making it very expensive for both airlines and the

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.