Spirit Airlines Porter's 5 Forces

• Offer low fares and still maintain a high-quality distinguished product that offers friendly service and a comfortable and entertaining flight experience.

They serve no meals, do not offer seat assignments, and do not baggage to other airlines. They avoid airports with high landing fees or frequent delay. All of this enables them to make quicker turns and fly more legs each day, resulting in lower fares. Today they are without question the most successful airline in America-if not the world.” (p.8, 2002)

Southwest’s primary competitors are JetBlue and Spirit Airlines. These two airlines, like Southwest, focus on innovation and low airfare costs. Among the largest airlines are American, Delta, and United. However, these mainline carriers are far from posing any major threat to Southwest. (Coulter, pg 253)

Jerome Simelane, the airline's Commercial GM, “By using what we have learned over the years about international airline best practice‚ we have also created a cost structure which allows us to offer competitive fares without cutting any corners on quality‚ safety and reliability."

Firstly, Spirit’s lowest-cost distribution channel and lowest fares are on WWW.Spirit.com; predominantly, 78% of ticket sales came through this channel (Tnooz, 2011). Ordinarily, the advantages of this channel eliminate; markups and commissions to intermediaries, foster customer relationships, and prevents market leverage or play one airline off against another. Likewise, the channel offers the carrier with full control on ticket

Over the years, company sustained low operation costs and tickets prices following well-developed strategy. Among other measures, it was able to keep prices low by flying only one airplane type, minimizing service and maintenance expenses, and convincing employees to cut gate turn-around times and make the airline more efficient (Fitzpatrick, 2005).

Southwest Airlines is a company that is known for its low ticket prices and profitability despite the highly risky industry in which it operates. This essay examines the cost behavior, cost volume profit (CVP), activity based costing (ABC), budgeting process, costing and decision making policies of the firm. The essay will discuss how the airline integrates these concepts in its daily operations.

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

Most successful low-cost carriers try to offer a modicum of additional benefits, such as better on-time performance or more legroom. AirTran Airways has been very successful with its low-fare Business Class, while Frontier and JetBlue offer live in-flight television. US Airways offers a first class product, and a very extensive route network including international destinations.

: On average, over 8 million people fly around the world daily and over 2 billion fly in the United States daily. Everyone wants non expensive flights, comfortable seating, and on-time flights. Spirit Airlines is an airline that prides themselves on provided very low costs to customers and they strive to be the most cost efficient airline in regards to their competitors. “Spirit Airlines was founded in 1964 as a Clippert Trucking Company” (https://www.spirit.com/history.aspx) and has grown to servicing beyond coast –to- coast and has transitioned to low-cost carrier and ultra-low cost carrier. Spirit Airlines transitioned to Airbus fleet and consists of A319s, A320s, and A321. The A319s has seats 145 customers, the A320 seats 174 customers,

The future of the industry is in JetBlue’s “cheap chic” style. Airlines need to maintain a cost effective price point while also not appearing cheap. Small

The airline industry can be considered an imperfect oligopoly. There are several large carriers that dominate long distance flights, and many small carriers that compete for short distance flights. Competition is fierce, and the return for most carriers is very low. Some airlines are trying to differentiate themselves, like JetBlue for example, by offering superior services at low prices. Other low cost airlines, like Southwest, offer low costs with no frills. Most airlines offer a frequent flyer programs in order to develop brand loyalty. In recent years there has also been several alliances formed between airlines. These alliances enable

The airlines do not focus on the combination of quality and good service at a fair price; its focus is instead only on providing ultra low cost. It also charges customers for value added features and services. Thus the pricing is value added pricing. When compared to the competitors of Spirit for operating costs per seat mile; it is lower compared to other major airlines. The important points like encouragement to demand stimulation and preference for its low-cost model makes it successful for its low-cost pricing strategy.

Flight Centre offers a very competitive price. The prices are usually are lower than its competitors when it comes to domestic and international flights. It provides the option of different prices ranges. These price ranges depend on the services that a customer requests. It provides economy class, business class, premium class, and first class price ranges. Due to its affordable prices and good services, it has grown to become a 13.5$ billion business comprising of more than 30 brands. It works had to keep up with the competition by providing best possible prices while ensuring customer loyalty (Flight Centre the Airfare Expert).

The success of budget airlines forced traditional operators to lower their prices by adapting internet sales and yield management techniques. However they still struggle to compete with low prices offered by the LCCs. Further reductions in traditional airline ticket prices are expected.