Flight Services On Us Domestic Flights Increase Customer's Brand Loyalty

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.

Introduction Spirit Airlines’ success is due to its unwavering commitment to be amongst the leaders in the Ultra-Low Cost Carriers (ULCCs) market in the United States. Spirit Airlines has committed themselves to target customers of the airline travel industry who want to pay the lowest base fare price possible for quick and reliable travel to their destinations. Spirit controls their ticket pricing by taking a “no frills” approach that strips out all the extra amenities from their base fare ticket pricing. This approach allows Spirit customers to control the level of air travel they desire by allowing them to add back and pay for only the amenities they want. Furthermore, as for amenities, the frills such as free Wi-Fi, a la carte meals,

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.

Social cultural forces are a double-edged sword for the company. Southwest used advertisements that targeted the cultural values and common buyer behavior of upper-middle class to upper-lower class consumers. Ads such as “bags fly free” and “Why do they hate your bags” resonated with consumers that believe airfare should be all-inclusive. The negative effect of this competitive advertising is reduced fee revenue compared to competitors like United Airlines. The demand of niche airlines will change as the demographics change, such as an increase in millennials flying versus baby boomers.

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

carrier; the worst all-around carrier charges for every ancillary product. Established under Airline Segmentation, Spirit targets price sensitive, business-class, middle-class, students and solo travelers within psychographics (Zigu, 2017). Consequently, this paper will discuss the carrier; ticket distribution channels, pricing strategy, and product promotion.

Southwest Airlines has effectively used a variety of promotional elements in its integrated marketing communications, making it one of America’s largest airlines with 3,300 flights a day to 72 domestic cities. Southwest Airlines has used all four possible elements of the promotion mix: advertising, public relations, personal selling, and sales promotion, but has focused primarily on advertising and public relations to add value to the product offered to customers. Its focus on advertising and public relations is directly related to its large size and it’s nationwide reach. Also, advertising and public relations are the

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 April 1992, American Airlines launched "Value Pricing" -- a radical simplification of the complex pricing structure that had evolved over more than a decade following deregulation of the U.S. domestic airline industry. American expected that the new pricing structure would benefit consumers and restore profitability to both American and the industry as a whole. The critical issue raised is: Would American's bold initiative work?

As a legacy airline, it would not be productive for United to try and gain business from those that are more concerned with lower ticket fares. Instead, the airline chose to focus on the frequent business travelers as their core market. By segmenting the customers, United chose to focus on the global executives as their target market. “These folks made up only 9 percent of United’s travelers, but they represented 46 percent of United’s revenue” (Di Frisco, 2011, para. 2). By using psychographic segmentation,

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

This paper will address the customer relationships of Southwest Airlines based on the following benchmarks: Employee Relationship, Sales & Marketing/Competitive Advantage, Value Creation, Internal & External Environmental Factors, Ethical Issues, and Customer Orientation. Research from Southwest Airlines’ website, Indeed.com, Dallas Morning News, JetBlue, Spirit, Forbes, Investopedia.com, Yourbusiness.com, Ethicsdiscovery.com, and Contemporary Selling Building Relationships, Creating Value 4th Edition, will support findings. This report illustrates how Southwest Airlines flourishes in its industry with both customer and employee satisfaction. Findings will demonstrate how the airline uses customer relationship management to create value with its products and services.

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 analysis will evaluate how a suffering airline, respective to its quality of food offerings, can improve outcomes using market research and customer feedback. This information can be used to support changes in their airline menu. These changes can ensure a better consumer perception toward the airlines food offerings. The use of secondary research, surveys, questionnaires and small pilot groups can assist the airliner with making changes that meet the target audiences expectations. This analysis will identify the abstract constructs used to measure acceptability of airline food offerings. Both culinary offerings and people’s opinions of what constitutes