United Airline Case Analysis : The Case Of The United Airlines Case

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 responsibility of a commercial airline pilot is not only to get their passengers from

Airline travel is arguably safer than that of car travel, with not only less risk for in motion issues and collisions of any sort, but not issues about missing the turn off. Airline travel issues do not usually persist during travel, yet can sometimes happen before the take-off even begins. The issue with Airline travel is not travel hazards, but instead travel protocols often carried out by the airline companies. United Airlines specifically has gone through too many CEO switches and un-transparent business ethics leading to customer complaints and needs to reevaluate business ethics.

Southwest spearheaded “Shuttle By United” by emphasizing the particularly city-pairs where they competed directly. Additionally, Southwest heavily promoted their 21-day advance fares and other discounts. Southwest’s average fare for the intra-California market decreased from $45.00 in the third quarter of 1994 to $44.00 in the fourth quarter of 1994 and into early January 1995. The Oakland-Seattle route was $51.00, down from $60.00 in the third quarter of 1994. Southwest vice president of marketing and sales estimated the average passenger fare for “Shuttle By United” was roughly 5-10 percent higher in the nine markets it competed directly with Southwest and about $20.00 higher than the average Southwest fare in the markets it did not compete directly.

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.

However there are several cost drivers that could break the airline and cause a large loss of income. A few are; excess flight

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

Recently, the WSJ had displayed data regarding United Airlines signifying that the company was not covering their flight costs from San Francisco to Washington D.C. Due to this, they had assumed United Airlines is unable to cover their costs, so in this case it was suggested for them to discontinue their services. To begin, it is critical that United Airlines should preform a marginal analysis in order to make a final decision. A marginal analysis focusses on incremental costs and benefits that will help aid companies in making a final decision. After completing this analysis, the company can then make an executive decision on whether or not they should discontinue their flights.

This short paper is an overview of Southwest Airlines, its strategy, and what role Human

Another emerging trend in the past five years has involved the progress made on open skies agreements between the United States and other countries. Open skies agreements serve to liberalize Orlando International Airport transport markets between the two signing countries or parties in the agreement. These agreements remove government restrictions, such as limits to the number of flights any one airline is allowed to operate per week between countries. The removal of these limitations has opened some routes up to increased competition, by allowing Orlando International Airport to fly more frequently and making these routes more accessible. Orlando International Airport could not previously justify the capital expense of operating on routes with limited flights are now able to profit on routes with high demand.

Because technology has transformed the way many businesses operate, there are now fewer reasons to travel for business when one can effectively facilitate meetings remotely such as using video conferencing. This has reduced the number of diverter travelers so that companies can save or reallocate monies previously set aside for travel. Competitor innovation or pricing changes cause additional uncertainty. From a risk perspective, Piedmont will have to assess the impact if fewer diverters decide to travel at the last minute, which would be the worst-case scenario with fewer discounted fares available. Continual evaluation of the Revenue Enhancement Department’s process for discounted seating allows Marilyn to assess the potential of lost revenue.

• Costs measured in cost per available seat mile (CASM) – cost required to fly one seat one mile

Airlines Industry is large and growing, it is also the most fiercely competitive sector. It facilitates international trade, world economy growth, tourism and international investment. The airline industry has over time with the use of modern technology been able to take advantage of the short haul, high frequency and gained a competitive advantage over other forms of travel, such as buses and railroad travel. Additionally, the airline industry still holds the market for global travel at a low cost and convenient way to travel. The aviation industry gives a good contribution to the GDP which includes the following: airline services, general aviation, civil airport operations, aircraft manufacturing, and

British Airways (BA) is a company that encountered several difficulties back in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The poor performances of the organization, was leading the company to failure. BA was offering a service that even though it accomplished the mission of the company, was not providing customer satisfaction. The organization was not taking into consideration the needs of the costumer and was not providing an acceptable customer service experience. “Productivity at BA in the 1970s was strikingly bad, especially in contrast to other leading foreign airlines” (Jick, Peiperl, 2010, p.28). Due to numerous changes, the company increased their revenues and became a respectful and well know organization.

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.