The Top Airline Industry

Established in 2005, until December 2011, Kingfisher Airlines had the second largest share in India's domestic air travel market. However, the airline had been facing financial issues for many years, and due to a severe financial crisis faced by the airline at the beginning of 2012, this share dropped to the lowest in the market in April 2012.

According to Fortune 500 (2015), Delta airlines is the largest airline in the world today and is able to fly to 567 worldwide destinations in over 100 countries. Delta airlines owns and operates its own reservations system and data and they give the employees stock in the company with profit sharing and stock ownership. One weakness of Delta airlines is the relying on it 's much older refurbished airplanes. Since oil prices are low they are able to save on costs but that could change if they oil prices increase again. US Airways has merged with American Airlines and the two have since become the world 's largest airline but both have since faced losses since the 2008-2009 economic crisis. US Airways has also had poor customer service

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).

From 1972 to 2002, Southwest Airlines stock returned more for their shareholders than any other stock in the same time period (Collins, 2006, Hospital Strategy IV: Southwest Airlines and thinking outside the box). Many companies have begun to take notice of the Southwest model; a model that allows Southwest to thrive while many of its contemporaries are faced with financial difficulties. The success of Southwest Airlines can be attributed to their structure. This structure has made it possible for Southwest Airlines founders Rollin King and Herb Kelleher to create a culture that was unique and ahead of its time: a people first culture. This culture is supported by Southwest 's human resource practices. Every aspect is dependant upon each

Since its inception Air India has faced too many problems and was always caught up in controversies. Financial troubles never seem to end for the company. The biggest problem with the company is that it is going through a financial crisis for the last few years. In 2006, Air India made a loss of Rs 541 crore and Indian

British Airways is one of the top airlines both globally and in the UK. It boasts a large global flying network and provides travel to over 170 destinations on 280 aircrafts. Annually it serves 40 million customers making it an accessible, convenient brand, and an Industry leader (British Airways). In comparison to the original brand Virgin Atlantic, British Airways markets itself very differently despite sharing a niche and a market segment. The 4-Ps analysis will be a useful tool in examining these differences further, as well as analysing the major differences to determine how British Airways has distinguished itself from rivals such as Virgin Atlantic.

Southwest Airlines, founded in 1967, entered the airline industry at a time when the interstate travel was heavily regulated by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB).10 Some of those regulations are airlines were not allowed to discount fares even when their planes were at half capacity, airlines were not able to add new routes or remove old routes, and new carriers were not allowed to enter the interstate airline travel.10

According to Liu (2012), the U.S has the biggest economy in the world and its 17% proportion of the global GDP is testament to that. The U.S economy is comprised of various sectors and one of the most vital sectors is the aviation industry, which falls under the transportation and logistics sector and is a major source of growth for the U.S economy in terms of revenue, capacity building and human development. This highlights the importance of the domestic aviation industry, and any factors that affect this industry are bound to have effects on the entire economy.

One of the world’s most competitive and prominent industries is the airlines industry. It generates huge amounts of income as well as employment each year. Some of the common names in US air travel service providers are Alaska, Northwest, Southwest, US airways, American etc.

In september 2007, kingfisher took over the low-cost airline and renamed it as kingfisher red. Due to this merger, there was cannibalization of the kingfisher airlines. As kingfisher lite was a low budget airline, the customers found the rates of that airline to travel better than its main airlines. Even though after the merger, the company occupied the largest indian airline with 27.5% market share and 30% increase in domestic travel they didn't manage to make any profits. The company focused only on the expansion and not the after effects of

Poor financial management nearly bankrupted Malaysia airlines. Their approach was to review their profit and loss statement, rather than focus on the culture, the structure or the processes. Their regular fares were unable to cover the expenses of the airline. The second problem was the inefficient network. The third problem was the high cost of staff linked to the low productivity.

The absorbtion of a company is often a difficult task. Critical issues to consider, include organizational culture, technology, socio-culture, brand equity, and profitability of the firm.

The checking in of luggage has become a multi million-dollar business for airlines companies now, and to be more accurate in 2012 consumers paid over $3 billion dollars to check in their bags. Majority of airlines now charge a fee to check inn luggage, but a portion of that fee goes into paying the workers who make sure that your luggage makes it on he conveyor belt, or on to your connecting flight in a timely manner. With all the accommodations made for bigger aircraft, which includes bigger terminal, and bigger taxi, this reduces the amount of time that airline handlers have to sort your bags and get it to you on time. The baggage handling of one of the nations busiest airport is very sophisticated, “At the center of the airport’s baggage operations, well hidden from the view of passengers, is a vast sorting system consisting of 20 miles of high-speed conveyor belts, laser scanners, and pinball machine–style arms that shuffle bags and shoot them to their gate area”(Peterson, 2012, para.7). In spite of all this technology bigger planes like the A380, increases the chances of delays because of the increase capacity of the plane. Accommodating larger international flight means that more luggage’s have to be scanned, because more people are on these flights. Airport managers has to make accommodation with TSA to make sure that they have the accurate amount of workers on hand, so that all baggage’s are checked Thoroughly to make sure that no country band is not being smuggled

It’s a chilly winter evening in Bangalore and Vijay Mallya looks out of the window with a Kingfisher Beer pint in his hand. He looks out at the reddish horizon and contemplates the future of his airlines - The Kingfisher Airlines. He has recently bought the first low cost carrier in India, Air Deccan. With the sale of Air Deccan, the industry has seen a correction of sorts, in terms of the cost of travel. With increasing oil rates and the turmoil that the airlines’ industry is currently in, Mallya needs to come up with a strategy to make best of the low cost carrier. He also needs to

Page Introduction 1. What were the problems/issues facing the company? 2. Who are the stakeholders and what their stakes are? 3. How were the affairs of the company managed? 4. How would you describe the system that existed within the company? 5. How would you assess and rate the financial health of the company? 6. What are the possible salvage plans? 7. What would you suggest as appropriate course of actions? 8. How would an external auditor perform his work in this company? 9. If you are