External Factors Affecting Qantas '

On October 22nd, 2001, the Industrial dispute between QANTAS and its employees was initiated with the offering of a new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement. This proposed an 18-month wage freeze for employees plus a sliding scale profit share scheme. Ten out of twelve unions under QANTAS accepted the terms of the agreement, barring the unions of manufacturing employees (AWU and AMWU). They were holding out for a 4-6% pay rise. On the 8th May 2002, some ten months later, the dispute was resolved when QANTAS agreed to an across the board 6% pay increase. This essay provides an in-depth analysis into the dispute, including causes, the resolution process, the role of stakeholders, and costs and benefits for all concerned.

In the local region, Qantas managed to outweigh its competitor by gaining a toll of 65% compared to its competitor. Evidently this shows Qantas is the number one preferred airlines compared to other competitor airlines like Virgin, Tiger Airways and Emirates airlines. However the situation is not the same in South East Asian region as Qantas only managed to obtain about 15% of market share compared to likes of Air Asia who leads the market share with 60% in this region. Conversely, this is not a concern for the airlines as the airlines managed to generate revenue of 5 billion dollars, with a predicted passenger growth of 4.9% which is equivalent to 2.9 billion passengers by 2034.

Qantas International faces both direct and indirect competition, in a highly competitive, global marketplace. Direct competitors to Qantas International are those airlines that market full service international air travel, and the primary direct competitors identified in this market are Emirates and Singapore Airways.

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.

Customer service is a valuable influence on quality. Qantas delivers the expectations of customers by representing civil and accommodating staff members. Qantas has implemented a series of operational strategies to enhance the speed of their service. These vary from booking flights online, online check in, check in kiosks and Q Bag Tags. Dependability at Qantas is based on the consistency of on-time departures and arrivals. Flexibility is relevant to Qantas’ responses to the changes in market demand. Flexibility is demonstrated through Jetstar’s variable fare. Qantas offers customisation through its participation in the Oneworld Alliance, where it can provide its services to over 680 destinations in 134 countries. Qantas has worked on developing less costly and more efficient opportunities for its consumers by launching new discount airlines: Jetstar and Jetstar

Marketing strategies are an extremely important factor in determining the overall success of large global businesses (LGB). Marketing strategies are plans of action intended to promote and sell goods or services. There are a number of marketing strategies available, however, this report focuses specifically on pricing, promotion and global marketing. These determine how a business sells its goods and services, subsequently affecting market share, profitability, and cash flow. This is demonstrated when looking at the global businesses of Qantas Pty Ltd and Apple Pty Ltd. Qantas is an Australian based airline, which has grown from an airmail company to the largest airline in Australia,

for the half-year ended 31 December 2011, a decrease of $215 million compared with the prior corresponding

As outline in the Charter of the Qantas Board they are compliant to the ASX (2014) recommendations to ensure

Flight Centre describes itself as a global discount flight specialist. Taking into consideration the relative size of the Australian and international operations as well as the availability of information on global environment and competitive factors, for this analysis, it is more appropriate to consider the Flight Centre’s industry environment as “The Australian international and domestic airline

Qantas is established in the Queensland outback in 1920 and after that it has become biggest domestic and international airline and strong brand in the Australia. It is enrolled as the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited (QANTAS) and the group two airlines brands are Qantas and Jetstar those provides transportation services of the customers. Qantas created its strong brand reputation through deliver safe and secure services, focus on customer services, maintain reliability of operations and focus on maintenance, engineering and technology (Qantas Airways Limited, 2014). Quanta main business aims or objectives are:

In 1954, Qantas began service to SFO with the Lockheed Constellation, stopping over in Nadi, Fiji and Honolulu, Hawaii. 5 years later, the route was upgraded to a Boeing 707, and in 1971 the 747 was introduced on the route, eliminating the fuel stop in Fiji. Qantas has been in and out of SFO several times since then, leaving the route in 1995, returning in 2006, and leaving again in 2011.

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.

In this paper I will be analyzing the airline industry using Porter’s Five Forces. Porter’s Five Forces is a business management tool that allows firms to possess a clearer perception of the forces that shape the competitive environment of an industry, and to better understand what these forces indicate about profitability with regard to the microenvironment. The forces include Competitors, Threat of Entry, Substitutes, Suppliers, and Customers. When firms are able to widen their conception of competition beyond their direct competitors, and consider the broader economic fundamentals of their industry, they are able to form better strategy to better optimize their profitability. The airline industry is one characterized by low

Considering, the above conditions, the need to analyse the concept of ‘Predatory Pricing’ being played by the two competing airlines as a strategy to deter or even drive away Schnell Air from the market is essential. ‘Predatory Pricing’ is a key strategy that can be employed by an incumbent firm either to protect or to extend its market share against competitive attacks by smaller scale competitors and potential entrants or is used to drive out smaller rivals. These strategies have in common the intention of reducing the expected level of profits that actual and potential rivals can expect to earn in the present and future. After rivals exit, the predator firm presumably will raise prices to levels consistent with its market power. The predatory firm loses substantially more than its rival does; the incumbent must accommodate all demand, while its rival is free

The success of budget airlines forced traditional operators to lower their prices by adapting internet sales and yield management techniques. However they still struggle to compete with low prices offered by the LCCs. Further reductions in traditional airline ticket prices are expected.