Steep and Porter’s Six Forces Analyses for the Us Airline Industry

The Airline industry is a large and constantly growing industry. It facilitates economic growth, international investment and world trade and is therefore central to other industries as well for globalisation. There are various forces which lead to globalisation in airline industry. Key drivers of change are forces likely to affect the structure of an industry; sector or market. (1).

The airline industry has been a major factor in the globalization of the world economy. It connects the sellers and the buyers as well as transports goods across countries. It also breaks the time and distance barriers. In the past, air travel was considered a luxury but it is now a common necessity.

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.

Although there was a deregulation of the airline industry, the one significant component that did not change was the infrastructure of the airline industry. Constrained by the limitations of the airports and the air traffic control system, airlines did not see significant increases in profits despite the large growth and operations. As the airlines increased the number of flights and structure, the air traffic control system did not experience the same increase. Because the ATC system was still controlled and owned by the government, growth was, and continues to be slow.

With the passing of the airline deregulation act of 1978, airline carriers were now provided with new options to help expand their route systems and to help the flexibility of innovative pricing structures. This flexibility allowed the carrier to now grow into new markets. Also, deregulation now brought many unwanted and very hostile takeovers and mergers. Many airlines became onboard with this and became giants in the industry.

American airline industry is steadily growing at an extremely strong rate. This growth comes with a number economic and social advantage. This contributes a great deal to the international inventory. The US airline industry is a major economic aspect in both the outcome on other related industries like tourism and manufacturing of aircraft and its own terms of operation. The airline industry is receiving massive media attention unlike other industries through participating and making of government policies. As Hoffman and Bateson (2011) show the major competitors include Southwest Airlines, Delta Airline, and United Airline.

| Competition from low cost airlinesGovernment regulationsPrice volatility in petroleum marketIncreasing security and safety concerns

Commercial airlines and other air transport operators form the bulk of the customers. Governments are also important customers. The government involvement in the sector extends to investing, supporting (Aboulafia, Richard, 2000; O’Neal, Michael, 1990) and regulating. Any problems in the industry have implications that go well beyond the confines of the affected companies. Governments therefore subsidize and invest in aircraft manufacturing and research and development. This also serves to protect the highly skilled jobs in this sector and ensures that the respective countries remain technologically competitive (Wall, R. & Sparaco, P, 2007).

Routes to small cities were quickly abandoned leaving cities without air transportation. There is shrinking domestic flights, monopolies at airports, this yields pricing power. Price for domestic flights rose in 2009 and 2010 by 15% and 8.3% in 2011 (Finger,

The beginning of government-imposed regulations on the airline industry can be dated back to the passage of the Civil Aeronautics Act in 1938. (Millbrooke, 2006) The Civil Aeronautics Act was responsible for transferring federal responsibilities for non-military aviation from the Bureau of Air Commerce to a new independent agency referred to as the Civil Aeronautics Authority. The Civil Aeronautic Authority soon became Civil Aeronautics board (CAB) and had three major functions: to award routes to airlines, limit the competition by controlling the entry of new air carriers into the market, and to regulate the air fares. (Millbrooke, 2006) The established practices of the commercial passenger can be dated even further back to the policies of Walter Folger Brown, the U.S. postmaster general in

The domestic US airline industry has been intensely competitive since it was deregulated in 1978. In a regulated environment, most of the cost increases were passed along to consumers under a fixed rate-of-return based pricing scheme. This allowed labor unions to acquire a lot of power and workers at the major incumbent carriers were overpaid. After deregulation, the incumbent carriers felt the most pain, and the floodgates had opened for newer more nimble carriers with lower cost structures to compete head-on with the established airlines. There were several bankruptcies followed by a wave of consolidation with the fittest carriers surviving and the rest being

The airline industry has always been a fiercely competitive sector. Since the invention of low-cost carriers, also known as no-frills or

Since the airline industry is a direct product of market conditions, it is greatly affected by all externalities. Many people noticed a decline in travel after the September 11th tragedy occurred due to safety concerns. When there is a huge increase in fares that definitely interferes with the demand for travel; it causes the price of tickets to continue to rise since a clear correlation between supply and demand exists. When the economy is doing well in terms of the employment rate, and when the dollar is strong people have the tendency to travel more (Jerram,1998).

Operations in international and/or foreign countries will create significant operational challenges. Differences in governing laws and regulations for the airlines industry, business, and employee relations will become challenging. Interpretation and intent for various laws can and will provide ambiguity that must be dealt with. Research shows that various international airlines continue to be plagued by high costs and poor service (Ramamurti & Sarathy, 2007).

Substitutes to air travel pose a significant threat to the profits of the entire airline industry. It is advantageous to be in an industry with few or no substitutes as they diminish profitability for the industry as a whole. There are many alternative ways in which a person can travel long distances. Therefore, the airline industry is threatened by many substitutes. Trains are the primary substitute to air travel in that they provide long distance travel at marginally lower expense to the buyer. Train stations are also generally more accessible to the public than an airport, which adds further appeal to the substitute of traveling by rail. An advantage held by airlines is the fact that air travel is widely known to be a much faster mode of transportation, yet more and more buyers are choosing train travel over air travel strictly slight for the price advantage.