Air Canada - Risk Management

Air Canada has been in the business of air transport for an extended period of time. Due to the experience and the exposure of the carrier in the field, it has made a commendable progress through many strategies as well as customer proximity. One of the approaches taken by the airline involves the identification as well as an implementation of cost reduction initiatives in a bid to increase revenue from its operations (Air Canada, 2016). It is also attempting to connect with the existing carriers across the world to connect the current customers to the international world. This approach has been adopted to increase its competitive advantage over other existing airlines.

However, despite the correct decision to privatize, the company continued to have troubles. The financials of the newly privatized airline were unreflective of the successful stock offerings. “Air Canada reported losses of C$74 million in 1990 and C$218 million in 1991, and it reported that it had nearly two million fewer passengers in 1991 than in the previous year.” These failures were blamed on the effects of the economic recession and the decrease in travel due to the war in the Persian Gulf. However, it was clear that competition with international carriers was a major cause. To elaborate, the airline industry is considered to be a cyclical industry, meaning that it is directly affected by the business cycle. As such, during times of

September 11, 2001, was a horrific event that rocked the world and the way people viewed the safety of airline travel. The airline industry was hit the hardest after that day and it was uncertain if they could regain their customer’s

WestJet Airlines is a Canadian airline that differentiates itself with their low cost flights and exceptional customer service. The company’s philosophy is “just because you pay less for a flight, doesn’t mean you should get less.” WestJet has been growing rapidly since 1996, however, they believe in growing responsibly by being cautious of their environmental and community impact (“About us”, n.d.). As WestJet has a strong presence locally, our analysis will mainly focus on WestJet’s domestic segment.

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.

Westjet Airlines has achieved considerable success in the past few years, winning estimable rewards related to its service, gaining loyal customers and, of course, increasing market shares. It devotes to a “high-value, low-fare airline” which provides humanized services to customers. Another pride of Westjet is its IT, which designs all systems in-house and is operated based on the business demands.

Air Canada mission is simple and straightforward which is the connect Canada with the world. Naturally focusing on improving their financial performance in order to increase productivity and its cost structure. To minimize fuel emission and other greenhouse gases based on Air Canada’s environmental concern. Their vision consists in building loyalty through quality service and innovation.

This was evident with the purchase of Canadian Airlines, in 1999 (The National, 2003). With the purchase of this airline, Air Canada also inherited their estimated eight billion dollar debt (The National, 2003). Also inherited from the merger, were underappreciated employees and under trained employees who lacked morale (The National, 2003). In 2003, Air Canada filed for bankruptcy (The National, 2003), this was due to the large financial deficit, the economy and the underappreciated/paid employees. Although, this was a difficult time for the airline, this truly marked the change in how the airline is structured. In 2005, it marked the true return of Air Canada, they reached record breaking revenues and far exceeded anyone’s expectation, including their own. Currently Air Canada, is the largest Canadian Airline, which has a lot to do with their change in business strategy.

The terrorist attacks are only one of the causes of crisis in the industry because there are several issues that threaten the industry. One that was mentioned earlier gas prices. Labor disputes are a factor as well. You may say that the airline industry has hit an extremely bad era. The changes that these airlines are being driven to make will be very different from the way it used to be. As most people know, the government has had much in bailing out business and the transformation that some have undergone and the airline industry is no exception. The government has a major influence on the restructuring of the industry and the air transportation system in general.

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

Colin Rovinescu, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), for Air Canada was reviewing the Risk Management program of the company because the scheduled board meeting was approaching soon. He needed to deliver a comprehensive presentation in front of the board members.

Since the airline industry is a direct product of market conditions, it is greatly affected by all externalities. Many people noticed a decline in travel after the September 11th tragedy occurred due to safety concerns. When there is a huge increase in fares that definitely interferes with the demand for travel; it causes the price of tickets to continue to rise since a clear correlation between supply and demand exists. When the economy is doing well in terms of the employment rate, and when the dollar is strong people have the tendency to travel more (Jerram,1998).

4. Several major airlines filed for bankruptcy. Many airlines significantly decreased their capacity, reduced their routes and postponed purchases of new aircraft. Some airlines reported a 50% reduction in routes and flight frequency. All these events provided opportunities for the low-cost carriers not only to increase the number of flights but also to introduce services on new routes.

Situational Analysis The airline industry throughout the world and specially in Europe was facing hard time prior to the incidence of 9/11 with declining passenger growth rates and overcapacity was putting pressure on yields and margins. But afterwards budget airlines continued growth and profits as compared to increasing deficits of the mainstream airlines. European budget airline is

1989 has been a year in which both aviation experts and spokesmen. For the flying public have expressed intensified concern over what they perceive to be a substantial deterioration in the safety of America’s passenger airline operations. In the first nine months of 1989 alone, there have been ten fatal air crashes involving large transport-category planes owned by U.S. based carriers (Ott p.28). This compares disfavorably to the first nine of months of 1988, when but two such accidents took place, and in fact, it is the highest number of death-causing accidents for the American commercial aviation industry during the 1980s (Fotos p.31). This spate of airborne tragedies has prompted interested parties to ask a series of disturbing