Executive Summary
Throughout the years there has been an increase in strategic alliance formation in order to combat a number of factors creating uncertainty in the market and to share knowledge and know-how. The formation of alliances has also occurred in the Airline industry; this report discussed how these alliances gain economies of scales and synergies. The deregulation of the airline industry has open doors to more competition sand to further agreements such as the “open skies”, these agreements allows airlines to serve consumers more efficiently by offering extensive domestic, continental and intercontinental service networks.
Through the formation of alliances, airlines have created economies of scale through extensive use of a
…show more content…
‘Open skies’ opened possibilities for airlines to serve consumers more efficiently by offering extensive domestic, continental and intercontinental service networks. Deregulation has made positive changes in the airline industry by expanding a network of services where a consumer can choose a variety of desired destinations with just one airline. Increased traffic feed between partners has helped to effectively utilize seat capacity and increase flight frequency. Alliance partners reduced operational and ticket costs by taking advantages from economies of scale and scope. Improved service quality was achieved through more coordinated time schedules and increased itinerary choices for passengers (Bennett, 1997).
Deregulation Effects
On Safety
Safety is the most important aspect of product quality for the consumer and unlike with other simply distinguishable products a flight safety is very difficult to observe or evaluate. In order to rectify the issue Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) substantially tightened safety requirements from a very beginning of deregulation. FAA has tightened requirements for pilot qualifications, crew training and increased maintenance requirements for large commuter aircrafts. All the safety precautions had a positive impact reducing more then half of accidents. Aircraft manufacturers purchased a complete accident indemnity before the actual
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).
The airline industry has always been a fiercely competitive sector. Since the invention of low-cost carriers, also known as no-frills or
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
Aircraft industry has only small suppliers while the customers are all over the world. As above mentioned the industry requires large complex cooperate alliances in its hierarchy, only few countries having high tech industry basis are able to
A drop in fares has been the best result of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. It has been the impetus for the increase in the number of flights, which in turn has spurred a drive for greater safety in airlines. But with the current airline market, this development has given us one negative. Since ticket prices have dropped to new lows, the realities of an industry which operates on such economies of scale dictates that only a few competitors have the capacity to operate within the market. This is not the desired effect of either political side on this issue, but it is an economic necessity with the environment that has been created, very similar to that of public utilities and phone companies.
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.
Global airline alliances in another issue included in Virgin’s external environment. Alliances benefit airlines in many ways as they enable them more market access, convergence of technologies and even help overcome legal barriers (Anon., 2009). One weakness for Virgin therefore is not being part of an alliance such as Oneworld Alliance (Anon., 2009), in order to take full advantage of its potential Virgin should look into adjusting their market strategy and look into joining an alliance, if not form its own.
Beowulf is an Epic Poem where the epic hero, Beowulf, competes with monsters and a dragon to show his loyalty to King Hrothgar and his Geats. Throughout the poem, Beowulf encounters many battles that tests his fate, yet in the end he has many victories. Many themes are developed throughout this epic story of Beowulf, which are still seen in many of today’s literary works. The Epic of Beowulf uses a theme called ‘In Media Res’.
The strategic alliance between Qantas and Emirates was a result of a careful analysis of the airline industry and its involving competitors.
The years since regulation have been rocky for the airline industry. Airline after airline has declared bankruptcy and either ceased existence or emerged as a weaker airline. The surviving airlines have done so by merging and protecting their territory with tactics not even dreamed of in most industries. Robert Crandall said it best when he noted, "This is a nasty, rotten business (Petzinger,1995)." You would think that with the competition allowed by deregulation that a large number of new names would exist, but that does not seem to be the case. Most Americans still travel on American, Delta, United, US Airways, or Continental (Kane, 2003). The only true champion of deregulation is Southwest Airlines, whose success is paving the way for others such as JetBlue, but the obstacles are enormous. Initially, the airlines went after each other by slashing fares and driving competitors out of business. The industry quickly learned that although this tactic was effective, it was not profitable, and it was more economical to focus on controlling the air out of a few cities (hubs) than to attempt to directly compete in every single market. Since most of the major airlines already had key cities in which they controlled most of the takeoff and landing slots, airlines could charge higher fares and take in greater profits without any real head to head
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
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
first it should be underlined, that in the airline industry, there are two types of buyers (Hartley, 2013). The first type is the individual buyers, who buy tickets for personal or business reasons, related to their own individual well beings. This type of buyers is extremely diverse and there is barely someone who had never bought a ticket, especially in the developed countries. A plane ticked could be purchased directly from the airline company’s ticket offices or from the second group of buyers, e.g. travel agencies and online portals. This buyer group works as a middle man between airlines and flyers. They work with many airline companies to give consumers the best possible flight. Between these two groups there is definitely a large amount of buyers compared to the number of firms. There is low cost shifting between companies because many people choose flights based on where they are going and costs at the time. This is a loyalty to the companies, but not enough high switching costs. Each client needs a lot of important information. They need
In less than twenty years, the global industry has gone through tremendous change. Several airlines had gone out of business that had been on top of the industry for years. One of the remarkable changes had been airline alliances. The case focuses on the airline industry and how airlines are forming alliances and joint ventures. It then introduces the partner firms Air France KLM , and Delta . Air France KLM had over 25 collaborative agreements with other carriers and was a founding member of Skyteam, one of the leading airline groups. Air France KLM and Delta Airlines formed revenue