Introduction
In the modern day aviation and airline market, legacy carriers such as Emirates, Qantas and Cathay Pacific are pressured by the strong and quickly growing competition by low cost carriers (LCCs) such as Air Aisa, Jetstar Airways and Tiger Airways.
Attempting to stay competitive while maintaining the level of quality and service that legacy carriers usually offer, Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong’s legacy flag carrier airline and fourth time recently named “Worlds Best Airline” introduced ‘Premium Economy’ seats.
Therefore, this commentary has been written with specific reference to Cathay Pacific and the effect of competition imposed by LCC’s in the South East Asian market on the company, as well as if and how it’s ‘premium economy’ seats and service contribute to whether or not they are
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The position map shows the opportunity and market gap Cathay may have aimed to fill. Their premium economy seats provide the high service that they are renowned for, for a lower price that appeals to consumers and successfully competes with LCC counterparts that offer low prices but compromise on lower quality service and luxury.
The ansoff matrix illustrates the internal growth strategy, product development that Cathay Pacific has chosen to utilize. Product development takes advantage of Cathay Pacific’s already strong presence and market share within Hong Kong, the South East Asian market and other existing hubs. The ability for consumers to recognize the Cathay Pacific brand of quality and apply that to their expectations of premium economy retains consumer loyalty, while continuing to attract new consumers and successfully compete with upcoming
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.
The demographic characteristics of customers can be broken down by the class they choose to fly. First Class is chiefly attracting high-income earners, who are concerned with a high level of service and enjoy an air of exclusivity. These are knows as “comfort seekers” and they can include business magnates, federal politicians, sporting stars and a-list celebrities. The First Class market is highly concentrated; less than 3% of passengers will choose to fly First Class but those customers make up close to 30% in revenue for the airline (Keen and Strand 2007). Because the focus is on service and
Cathay Pacific might present a complementary budget airlines subsidiary or alliance which offers essential carrier services with a lower fare. It will broaden its market share through an affordable price. This option extends its proportion of the entire industrial sales through minimum investments with maximum profitability. But it might be blemished likewise because the brand of C.P. was not initiated for budget traveling.
Looking at the brief history of Boeing, the company was first founded in Puget Sound, Washington in 1916 by William Edward Boeing.
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
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
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.
The airline industry has always been a fiercely competitive sector. Since the invention of low-cost carriers, also known as no-frills or
Cathay Pacific Airways Limited, which is managed by the Swire Group, is the largest airline and flag carrier of Hong Kong. The company with over 14,000 staff worldwide now, was founded by 1946. It based at Hong Kong International Airport, and its operations include scheduled passenger and cargo services to over 120 places around the world.
The main reason for the low-cost subsidiaries’ failure is the airlines’ corporate strategy. By launching a LCC as a unit inside the same corporate structure (e.g., single scheduling and pricing centre for United Airlines’ and Shuttle’s low–cost flights), traditional airlines limited the LCC’s flexibility and independence. By building a low-cost carrier on top of a traditional carrier cost-structure, the parent company was also tempted to think low-cost when setting ticket prices, but not trying (or being able) to reduce traditionally high costs: the airline had now two unsustainable business models instead of one!
The Airline Industry is in an interesting situation. Simply adding a low cost alternative is not enough in the industry. The Internet has made the power of buyers grow with the transparency of ticket prices. This is not something that will change any time soon. Because of this profitability is predominately reserved for low-cost yet distinctive carriers. No consumer wants to ride what they consider a “lesser” airline. Airlines need a way to distinguish themselves from one another while also acknowledging the increased power of buyers.
This report is the analysis of the youngest airlines companies of Low Cost Carriers (LCC) Tiger
Defining themselves as “international airlines” capable of providing for passengers of any language or race appears to be another important point of parity. In this case, we can also see that Cathay Pacific finds it necessary to highlight this specific point-of-parity in several of their statements as they are based in a country that speaks in a different native language from most of the world. Similar attempts have been made by British Airways, which is based in an English speaking country but flies to all 6 permanently inhabited
Through s Porters Five Forces analysis (Figure 1 – Appendices) the greatest threat for Qantas is the rivalry. Qantas is taking advantage of this opportunity as through the alliance it creates greater certainty for the shareholders while also being able to increase its numbers in international routes to 33 one-stop destinations in Europe in addition to 31 one-stop destinations in the Middle East and North Africa (Ryan, 2012). Additionally, as competition was putting pressure on the market while Qantas was restricted by financial reasons, this alliance came as a great opportunity. Furthermore, from 31st of March Qantas frequent flier point users were able to book Emirates flights while the customers’ high status with Qantas was recognized at Emirates as well. Lastly, on European, Asian and African destinations Qantas mirrored Emirates baggage policies (from 20kg to 30kg) (Panaus Travel, 2013).
Environmental forces are something that is intangible but somehow it still affects your firm¡¦s operation. Therefore, these environmental forces can be divided into groups such as internal and external forces. In the Cathay Pacific Airway case, the internal forces can be considered as its human resource management, since the labor cost is its main concern. In addition, government policies, competitors and customer satisfaction will be considered as its external forces.