This is an analysis of the Harvard business school case on Airborne Express. It is a bit specific but definitely contains all necessary information.

Danville Airlines has created an ethical and legal dilemma by not being accurate, precise and clear on how they are doing medical testing, causing undue stress and potentially career-ending circumstances for David Reiger, one of their best pilots. What Danville did was illegal and unethical due to negligence. David Reiger has every right to sue them to continue flying, and the medical evidence suggests that the Huntington's disease gene can be dormant for decades before being active and changing a person's nervous system (Darden, 2004). The company has violated the 1974 Privacy Act, the Heath Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, and the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act. As is best practice with the nascent, emerging field of genetic testing, Danville did not warn Reiger of the testing taking place, did not get his permission, and didn't even have a process in place for dealing with pilots, whom the traveling public relies on for safe transport, when they are tested positive for these types of diseases (Murry, Wimbush, Dalton, 2001). Clearly Reiger would win any lawsuit, the collateral damage to Danville being the lack of oversight and gross negligence in managing health screening.

1. United Airlines is owned by the UAL Corporation and was incorporated on December 30, 1968. The actual company was formed may years before this actually in 1925 and was a private mail carrying service between Pasco, Washington, and Elko, Nevada, and from these humble beginnings they formed a were able to start a company that would come to be a global leader in the airline service. From the 1960’s to the 1980’s the company had 6 different presidents and started to expand and venture into different aspects of business other then airlines and were unable to have any success. These companies that they purchased were not a success and were later resold.

JetBlue Airways, the latest entrant in the airlines industry has gone through the initial stages (entrepreneurial and collectivity) of the organizational life cycle rapidly under the successful leadership of David Neelman. JetBlue Airways is currently in the formalization stage of the life cycle where in it needs to create procedures and control systems to effectively manage its growth. Also as it proceeds to grow further to reach the elaboration stage, JetBlue needs to continue to align itself with the environment in order to maintain its sustained growth.

Q1) What is the industry attractiveness like in 1997? Has it changed in recent years?

JetBlue is an American airline company whose headquarter is located in the New York City. They are a low-cost airline who is rapidly growing in the Unites States. According to Wikipedia, “David Neeleman founded the company in February 1999, under the name "NewAir.” Many of their approach come from Southwest Airlines include low prices airfares. However, they differ in the amenities offered to the customers.

Studying FedEx, UPS and their competitive relationship in the decade from mid - 80's to mid - 90's gives a good insight for the companies' and industry's future. The two companies have different strategic goals and are operating in the same industry but in different main markets: FedEx is working on "producing outstanding financial returns" and focuses on the overnight air market while UPS is looking for "earning reasonable profit" and its core business is the two-day ground delivery. However, by 1981, the two companies started to have a strong sense

P. Airlines are subject to extensive regulatory and legal requirements issued by The Department of Transportation and The Federal Aviation Administration. The industry has to comply with laws and regulations not only domestically but also internationally which requires significant spending. After 9/11, many new security measures have been put into practice, resulting in expenditures for equipment, training the personnel, federal and airport charges, security taxes and etc.

This analysis investigates the management policies of the two primary competitors of the Air Delivery & Freight Services industry. I use ratio analysis to peek under the covers of profitability to understand how management, investment and financial management activities impact the overall performance of FedEx and UPS and study how the ratios change over time for FedEx.

At the onset of the airline industry in the United States, major network airlines were the sole providers of air travel. This multifaceted industry was a difficult industry to break into as a consequence of “sophisticated customer segmentation, hub-and spoke models and costly information systems for reservations, fare wars and intense competition” (Thompson 2008). Shrinkage in airline ticket prices augmented the demand for airline travel. Many markets were simply deserted or over-looked by major network airlines; this is a region a fresh “second tier of service providers” could enter into. This endeavor proved to provide a consumer savings of billions per year. Thus in June of 1971, after a tumultuous battle with other Texas-based

By looking at all the data showed by the case we can realize that the worst company in the industry of aircraft manufacturing was McDonnell Douglas because it confronted serious financial problems since 1980s when Airbus squeezed its market share. In 1984, MD's fleet comprised 28% of aircraft in service, by 1989 had only 23% of the worldwide fleet, while for example Boeing had 53% in the same year; in 1990 Boeing had 45% of the market share while Airbus had 34% leaving only 21% of the market to MD. The strongest company was Boeing which cover about 70% of worldwide demand, nevertheless the Airbus Industry was

From the humble financial portfolio as a crop dusting outfit in the mid twentieth century, to the multi-billion dollar portfolio of a major airline in the twenty first century, Delta Air Lines has risen as a successful business. The airline industry is directly affected by outside economic conditions and is also cyclical in nature. These factors make it very difficult for airlines to make predictions to stay financially afloat. Delta has ridden the bumpy path of the last twenty years and managed to survive. In the past twenty years there has been many events that

Fourthly, The Airborne maintained low prices, provided tailored services and achieved higher efficiencies and lower cost in order to long run and remain competitive in the market. So, Airborne targeted business customers who shipped frequently and was able to better serve them through repetition and experience including using customization codes to provide tailored service to specific large business accounts. Moreover, Airborne had a high concentration of customers in metropolitan area and a high percentage of afternoon and second day deliveries, permitting it to use ground shipping more often than its competitors and save up to two-thirds the cost of air shipping (Exhibit 8). Finally, Airborne had total control of its airport hub, which is design as per the needs and expand to enclose warehouse space for its business customers. Furthermore, Airborne achieved greater efficiency in its shipping by utilizing 80% of shipping space therefore; Airborne lowered cost not having retail service centers, using independent contractor van services and it was more efficient by picking up and delivering more parcels per stop than FedEx. Hence, Airborne becomes a stronger competitor in the market due to low prices and provided excellent service to the customers.

1. From the point of view of the industry incumbents, is the express mail industry attractive? How has Airborne survived, and recently prospered, in its industry? Is its success attributable to its capabilities, its position, or industry attractiveness?

The Airline industry has experienced continual problems with rising costs with both fuel and maintenance which has caused them to increase their fees to the consumers to pay for those rising costs. This paper will help explain what an airline such as Delta does to help alleviate such costs without forcing its consumers to flip the bill through high fees that consist of tickets, baggage fees and food. The costs of doing business in aviation today have spiraled out of control making it very expensive for both airlines and the

As with all airlines, Delta’s recent performance has been significantly impacted by industry shifts and external events. Terrorist attacks and escalating costs have significantly impacted Delta’s profitability in recent history (Rivkin 4). The company has also been losing valuable market share to the low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines throughout the southeast and specifically in the lucrative Florida market (Rivkin 8). JetBlue also began encroaching on key Delta routes, and this seems only likely to increase (Rivkin 9). Despite this, Delta has still performed better than any other legacy carrier (Rivkin 8). Still, recent history has brought several changes to this legacy carrier, and the company has turned its attention towards new competitive strategies.