4.1. Business Level Strategy The strategic direction of an airline must comprise a successful business strategy allowing the airline to compete with an advantage. Each department needs to make sure that employees implement the strategies that come from a corporate level and operate within the company’s brand values. This will assist in building the brand and improving the customer relationship focus. From the analysis of the internal environment, it is established that business level strategy BA implements is differentiation. This is because it offers a high quality premium service to its passengers that makes it quite difficult to compete with a cost leadership approach. If compared to the cost leadership, differentiation mainly deals with the external business environment as it looks for most appropriate and relevant ways of lining up their products to satisfy unique customer needs and meet their requirements Pursuing a differentiation implies focusing on supplying the market with a unique, not yet provided, service. This is most notable from BA’s first class passenger segment (Proctor, 2010). An organisation provides a new in-flight entertainment services, more legroom and individualised attention to its clients along with a consistent and thoughtgul service while other airlines lack from in spite of high prices BA charges. Moreover, an airline has a prompt and efficient check in services to guarantee that the safety of its passengers is of prime importance and
Business Strategy – BAD 4013 – SUMMER 1999 Case Study Southwest Airlines I. Strategic Profile and Case Analysis Purpose The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and company spirit. Twenty-seven years ago, Rolling King, owner of floundering commuter airline, and Herb Kelleher, King’s lawyer, got together and decided to start a different kind of airline that would provide a short-haul, low-fair, high-frequency, point-to-point service in the United States. The company began service on June 18, 1971 with flights between Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio (“The Golden Triangle” as Herb called it). Southwest Airlines is the fourth
The targeting strategy that Delta Airlines follows is a Single Segment Strategy. Business fliers are the main target for this airline. In order to reach their target market, Delta Airlines is conveying its message that it delivers everything business fliers need through advertising in broadcast media and other national media. A differentiation strategy is the extensive flight service and brand legacy of Delta Airlines is recognized throughout the airline industry as unique. There are several benefits of Single Segment Marketing. The company can gain more competitive edge. Their major competitors are United Airlines, Northwest Airlines, American Airlines, and British Airways. Also, the company can create more fine-tuned offerings at the right price for the specific market segments as well as have a clear picture of the
This report will be discussing strategic management to a company in the airline industry. This report will examine a chosen company’s strategic management and outline the stages. Strategic management is analyzing the situation facing the firm, also on the foundation of analysis formulating a strategy and lastly implementing strategy. Strategic management is the identification and the description of strategies that can be used by managers so as to attain better
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.
The five universal competitive plans include overall low-cost provider strategy, broad differentiation strategy, focused low-cost strategy, focused differentiation strategy and best cost provider strategy (Bethel, 2017). Southwest Airlines popular competitive strategy is keeping customers happy by being low cost, employee driven, future-minded, and differentiated. The overall low-cost provider strategy that is being used at Southwest is a low-cost airline that focuses on no-frills service (Investopedia, 2015). Southwest Airlines diligently follows the strategy of a differentiated low-cost carrier. [They do this by providing the lowest possible fare in the industry, and do so by focusing on consistent service, reliable operations,
In this strategic analysis report I as senior manager of Jetstar have developed PESTEL analysis, SWOT analysis, competitive analysis, created new mission and value
Differentiation strategies refer to the strategies that are adopted by businesses in a bid to gain competitive advantage in a given industry and over their competitors. Through differentiation, the company’s products or services stand out among other products that are offered by their competitors. Therefore, differentiation in essence refers to a scenario whereby, a company offers products or services which are unique or have features which are unique and which makes them stand out among its competitors. The airline industry is termed as an industry that experiences rapid and volatile changes amidst growing competition among many competitors in the globe. With this in mind, different airlines have to adopt different strategies that are to differentiate them among the many competing airlines in the world. This paper will focus on Southwest Airlines in the discussion of the differentiation strategies that it has adopted. Also, recommendations will be made will be done in reference to Southwest Airlines.
In an airline industry, customers form the core of the organisation and this is achieved by the level of customer satisfaction by voting for the airline. This expresses confidence in the airline. The airline to meet its customers expectations needs to ensure the following is adhered to:
Southwest Airlines represents a rather unique organizational force that has driven the company to success since its inception in 1971. One of the most unique features about the organizational structure is that it is largely decentralized and employees are openly welcomed to express their opinions on a wide range of organizational issues. However, despite the "hands off" management strategy, the company consistently ranks as one of the top airlines in regards to customer complaints; in 2008, for example, the company received 0.25 complaints on average for every one hundred thousand passengers who used the aviation services (Triangle Business Journal, 2009). This analysis will look at some of the organizational factors that have contributed to the success of Southwest Airlines over the course of the last few decades.
American Airlines (American) made four fundamental changes to its rates. First, it moved to a four-tier rate structure; American offered first-class rates and three tiers of coach: full-fare, 21-day advance purchase and 7-day advance purchase. Overall, it expected to reduce coach fares by 38% and first-class fares by 20% to 50%. Though full fare coach prices dropped by about 38%, advance-purchase fares dropped by 6% when compared to the advance purchase tickets already being offered. Through this fare structure, American also eliminated deep discount tickets. Second, American eliminated the negotiated discount contracts of many large
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.
Airline companies are becoming more and more competitive as the low budget discount airlines are becoming popular. It is key for airlines to differentiate themselves among the various airlines to choose from, and United Airlines wanted to ensure that it offered products and services for all marketing segments. “United realized that it needed to develop a customer-centric future strategy and galvanize its organization to improve the customer experience for its most valued customers” (Prophet, 2012, para. 1). This paper discusses the marketing plan for the newly merged
For JetBlue there is a need to ensure that the brand is seen as different. The firm has developed differentiation in the way that the service is offered. From the beginning the firm has used the entertainment options as a way of setting themselves apart (JetBlue, 2012). The service level is reflected in the way the brand has been marketed to support differentiation and show the airline in a different light, For example, in one advertisement which starts of as a typical airline the audiece hears
Low-cost carriers pose a serious threat to traditional "full service" airlines, since the high cost structure of full-service carriers prevents them from competing
Southwest Airlines faced many barriers to entry from the fierce competition of other airlines in the industry. Though competition was fierce, Southwest Airlines managed to succeed by doing things differently. Their mission was to provide affordable air travel to those who would not normally fly. Contradictory to the rest of the airline industry, Southwest maintained a profit while keeping its fares low. Southwest was unique to the industry in two ways. They focused on the short haul traveler and used a point-to-point method of flight connections.