The American Airline Industry
The Airline Industry is a highly competitive industry with companies operating in domestic and/or international markets. Many airlines are stilled owned by their respective countries and have treaties between countries to allow airlines to land there. The industry has been taking a relatively shaky course as costs are rising and profits have been decreasing. This was further intensified with the recent terrorist attacks on US soil, which lead to higher costs as the need for more security arose. Recent financial statements of major airlines showing major losses reflect the problems that the industry is having.
Yet amidst the storm, some regional airlines such as Jet Blue Airlines have managed to
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Many airline companies found themselves with heavy losses that lead to layoffs and in some cases bankruptcy. The industry has turned to Congress to bail them out of hole that they are in. Some of these airlines have been granted loans, but others were not because it was deemed they would be unable to repay. The industry is unattractive at this time so new entrants are not a major threat. There has been an increase however in the use of regional carriers and larger companies have entered this focused market themselves. Examples are American Airlines which owns
American Eagle and Delta Airlines which owns Delta Express.
Rivalry
This is a fiercely competitive industry. There are several major carriers that all seem to have a large market share. Airlines are always looking for ways to gain market share and this is often done through price wars, improved quality and customer service. Some airlines that started alliances with other airlines such as Sky team, an alliance between six airlines. The goal is to gain market share by giving the customer more benefits such as more flights, more lounges, fare options and quality service. These wars are extremely critical in times of depression because it forces airlines to go into bankruptcy or to close down. Airlines also use incentives such as frequent flyer miles to promote customer loyalty and passenger volume.
Purchasing Power of Buyers
Because of the fierce competition in
In the past three years the airline industry has faced an unparalleled list of challenges and American Airlines has certainly had more than the others. Year by year AA has tried to recover with a great deal of effort to turn the company around. The strategies they are applying to counteract the status are : Lower costs to compete, give to the customers the service they are expecting
Globalization can be defined as “making worldwide in scope or application”(1). In this comparison of the global corporate culture of Northwest Airlines and American Airlines several areas will be addressed. The strength of the global culture with-in the companies. The fit of the company to the global marketplace, and the adaptive ness or the empowerment of the employees will be examined and compared. Perhaps more important, than whether they currently have a global atmosphere, is whether they can improve or create this atmosphere. A comparison between the two airlines will be made on their mission statements, information dissemination, global-mindedness,
The risk of entry into the airline industry by potential competitors is low due to the “liberalization of market access, a result of globalization. According to the IATA (International Air Transport Association), about 1,300 new airlines were established in the last 40 years,” (Cederholm, 2016). The cost structure of businesses in an industry is a determinant of rivalry. In the Airlines Industry, fixed costs are high, because before the organization can make any sales, they must invest in air crafts, fuel and service employees. These items come attached with hefty price tags. Industries that require such enormous amounts of start-up capital as predicted by many analysts
Competitive rivalry: Airline industry can be characterized as imperfect oligopoly. There are several big airlines that dominate in long-distance flights and several smaller airlines compete for short-distance flights. The competition and price sensitive buyers lower the returns airlines receive. This market situation is favorable for a company like JetBlue, which differentiated itself by comfort at low price, but this can be easily duplicated by other companies.
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.
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
The following report of American Airlines and United Airlines, two American based airlines, analyzes and compares the composition of their respective fleets. These two air carriers are major airlines in the United States. Both airlines serve domestic and international flight, and since the year of 2006 have merged with other airlines. The report compares the aircraft inventory and age for American Airlines and United Airlines from the year 2006 until 2015, and incorporates the airlines that have merged with these in the time frame. The analysis utilizes data provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology through their Airline Data Project, as well as data gathered by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
2. The London based Airline could have verified their passenger list and should have identified Prof. McPherson as a Gold card member and a loyal customer and should have taken any one of these actions based on the situation:
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
On October 24, 1978, President Carter signed into law the Airline Deregulation Act. The purpose of the law was to effectively get the federal government out of the airline business. By allowing the airlines to compete for their customers' travel dollars, was the thinking, that fares would drop and an increased number of routes would spring up.
The goal of this paper is to explain the prominent success of Southwest Airline in the United States through a single case study analysis making use of the McKinsey’s 7-S framework. Developed in the early 1980s at the McKinsey & Company consulting firm by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman, this framework looks at 7 internal factors (Structure, Strategy, Systems, Style, Staff, Skills, Super-ordinate goals) which, according to its authors, need to be aligned for an organization to be successful. In this paper, we will analyse each of its internal elements through the case study “Southwest Airlines in 2008, Culture, Values, and Operating Practices”.
3,4- The Airline industry and the market The airline industry is large, specially in the United States, mainly due to the “ Deregulation” of the industry. In 1938, the Civil Aeronautics Board was created to control the growth of the air transportation industry. This board had the authority to control entry, exit, prices and methods of competition. In the late 1970 this structure was found inefficient and in 1978 deregulation took place. Due to the deregulation of the industry competition intensified, prices dropped, and the number of people travelling increased. Many new companies emerged and regional airlines saw deregulation as an opportunity to expand. Due to the rise in competition, by 1986 mergers started to take place and in 1987 64.8% of the market was controlled by the four largest airlines. The demand for air travel is determined mainly by price, studies revealed that half of the leisure travellers and on quarter of business travellers did not have a preference for a particular airline, which means that prices determined the
With 1988 operating income of $801 million on a revenue of $8.55 billion, American Airlines, Inc. (American), principal subsidiary of Dallas/Fort Worth-based AMR Corporation, was the largest airline in the United States. At year-end 1988 American operated 468 aircraft on 2,200 flights daily to 151 destinations in the United States, Bermuda, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, France, Great Britain, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain, Switzerland, Venezuela, and West Germany.
The market of the aviation sector changes and fluctuates over time due to various factors, such as globalisation, changes in public policy and human relations movement. The airline industry all around the globe is becoming more and more competitive nowadays (PricewaterhouseCoopers 2014). It requires the corporates to have strategic planning in order to maintain their growth and market share. Transformation program that involves every single individual in the organisation can effectively help it adapts and develops further. Though it is important to spend less and earn more to survive in such competitive industry, it is also important to invest in human resources wisely so that the organisation can make the most out of their investment.