Low-Cost Carriers vs Full-Service Airlines

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.

Overall, the five forces model suggests that the overall intensity of competition in the airline industry is likely to be severe. Back in the early 1980 's competition was very intense. During the late 1980 's the monopolization of major routes by a few major carriers, the limited availability of free landing spots at major hubs and the emergence of limited brand loyalty and tacit price agreements have all helped reduce the intensity of competition. However, as already mentioned, slumping demand in the early 1990 's plunged the industry once more into a severe price war. Airline travel is a commodity-type product, with limited potential for differentiation.

The strategic plan of Ryanair has been to establish itself as Europe’s leading low-fares airline.” Ryanair aims to offer low fares that generate increased passenger traffic while maintaining a continuous focus on cost-containment and operating efficiencies.” (www.ryanair.com)

In 2010, views on whether low-fare airlines would continue to flourish in Asia varied. Three factors regulation, population demographics, and socioeconomic trends -drove this calculus. Although the target consumer base for AirAsia was enormous -more than 500 million

The emergence of low cost airlines and their business models have fostered several changes within the tourism and travel industry as well as are having a tremendous impact on travellers’ behaviour. This increase in the travelling has a positive impact on the growth of various airlines. The development in the tourism industry especially in Europe over the past few years reflects this fact. Cultural changes towards travelling will benefit

Compare to the previous generation, the Youngers are more focusing on their budget rather the coverage of services. For example, they may not care about the entertaining facilities provided as they have their smart phone. Therefore, they may choose low cost airline or other transportations like through train to save their costs. Therefore, the traditional airlines need to change their images and strategies in order to fulfill the needs of customers. For example, the fanfares provided by The Dragonair and Cathay Pacific Airline which providing high quality of service with lower price. And the online promoting strategy which placing advertisement though social media platform such as Facebook can establish a young and updated image of the airline in order to fulfill the needs of young customers.

The transatlantic airline market between the United States and Europe is the single largest intercontinental market in the world, with rigorous competition between dozens of airlines. The transatlantic market consists of passengers, both seeking business and pleasure needs. Within the first year of offering transatlantic flights, higher income professionals travelling for business purposes will be targeted, along with families and students travelling on a J-1 visa. As the market is heavily competitive, targeted segments such as families and students will be relatively elastic to a change in price, with hope of finding the best deal. If Ryanair can replicate its hugely successful model, offering savings on landing fee

Ryanair chose to enter the market at a time when the consumer base needed a low cost alternative and the

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.

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

Within the category of services, it applies to different types of customers such as family, solo travellers and business travellers, the key focus of this report is on the upper-class service for business travellers and how it influences business travellers to purchase a flight package from them instead of using their competitors Jet airways, British Airways or Emirates. We can discover the decision-making process and how it operates but it’s important to understand the marketing strategy behind the company that makes it very successful and attracts more business travellers to fly with them.

budget sector. Business students at all levels enjoy this case and relate to it, since air

Due to the recent pilot scheduling error that led to rescheduling and cancelling flights for up to three quarters for Ryanair, the brand had to deal with tough times to regain its position in the industry. Ryanair has been successful in offering to the customers what it believed they needed namely secure air journey at a low price. However, Ryanair as a brand has competed and fared poorly in a range of polls and surveys in recent

In spite of the low switching costs and the absence of proprietary goods and services, generally speaking, there is a low threat to new entrants in the airline industry. The huge amount of capital make reprisals against new entrants through a price drop. This is evident among existing companies. Despite low switching costs, customer loyalty prevails

Young college educated professionals and college or graduate students between 21 and 45 years old represent the perfect target market for the low cost fare airline because both groups share similar psychological and behavioral traits. They are meticulous with their money to the extent that price is important when they are purchasing an item or paying for a service because most of them are recent college graduates entering the workforce and others are still pursuing an education with a limited income. Even if they have limited income, they still want to satisfy their lifestyle preferences. They want to obtain maximum value for their money without sacrificing personal comfort. These groups will be targeted because they are open to new experiences and they are price sensitive.