Our Roots. During the great depression, an enterprising gentleman named Linious “Mac” McGee stowed away aboard a ship bound for Alaska in search of opportunity. Unquestionably a far cry from the $5 billion acquisition of today, Mac purchased a three-seat Stinson for $5,000 in 1931; the first aircraft to which Alaska Airlines traces its origin. Originally, branded as McGee Airways in 1932 the aircraft was initially used in support of McGee’s fur trading business, but also saw service as a charter and scheduled carrier between Anchorage and Bristol Bay, Alaska. Simultaneously, during that same year another group of entrepreneurial aviators from Seattle joined forces to form Star Air Service based out of Anchorage with a single biplane. Following …show more content…
After several more years of on-again off-again involvement, including the acquisition of Alaska Interior Airlines, McGee became intolerant of regulatory restrictions encroaching on the air carrier industry and elected to sell Star Air Service to a corporation of investors in late 1937 (Alaska Airlines history: Mac McGee.). Subsequently, the company name was changed to Star Air Lines which remained until the acquisition of several other small Alaskan carriers in 1942 when it was changed to Alaska Star Airlines. Ultimately, the company elected to drop Star from its name in1944 marking the final name change to Alaska Airlines (Alaska Airlines: History by …show more content…
Over the next 20 years, Alaska Airlines enjoyed the golden era of air travel, introducing the fleet’s signature jet aircraft, the Boeing 727 in the mid-sixties. Progressively, the company experienced both great success and significant financial and organizational instability, to the point of near ruin when Ron Cosgrave took the helm in 1972. Extraordinarily, after years of loss, the company saw profits again in 1973 under his customer service driven leadership and would continue profitability for 19 straight years. Unfortunately, eager to grow, but bound by regulation, Alaska Airlines lobbied for deregulation and were rewarded with its approval in 1978. Undeniably, open competition meant opportunity for growth; and grow they did. Displaying persistent determination, Alaska Airlines expanded service, routes, and schedules and had tripled in size by the end of the 1980s with regular service to Mexico and Russia. (Alaska Airlines: Historical Overview.; Alaska Airlines: History by
The objective of this research report is to provide a thorough analysis of Alaska Airlines. In order to do this we chose to compare a similar company against them. The company in comparison is Spirit Airlines. Both companies compete in the same type of business through airline transportation. Many of their services include; security, safety, transportation of passengers as well as luggage, ensuring vehicle safety while in transit, concierge services, providing entertainment aboard plane, checking weather conditions prior to flight, and much more. All of the data gathered for this report was obtained from the company’s 10-k filings with the SEC.
The Airline Industry is a fascinating market. It has been one of the few industries to reach astounding milestones. For example, over 200 airlines have gone out of business since deregulation occurred in 1978. Currently, more than 50% of the airlines in the industry are operating under Chapter 11 regulations. Since 9/11, four of the six large carriers have filed for and are currently under bankruptcy court protection. Since 9/11 the industry has lost over $30 billion dollars, and this loss continues to increase. Despite the fact that the airline industry is in a state of despair, JetBlue has become the golden example, a glimpse of what the industry could be.
The original Frontier Airlines was Denver's hometown carrier for 40 years before it folded its wings in 1986 following its purchase by New Jersey-based People Express. The former Frontier carried 87 million passengers over the years and was nationally recognized for both the quality of its service and its outstanding safety record.
Remington, S. (1935). First Air Line, 1914. Early Birds of Aviation, Inc. Retrieved January 8, 2012, from http://earlyaviators.com/ejannto2.htm
After the Air mail Act in 1934, which separated the ownership of aircraft manufacturer and airlines, the President of the UATC had to be resigned and he moved to another airline at the time, which is Trans-Canada Airlines, now Air Canada. After this fall, Boeing’s company was broken into several parts, the first one was aircraft manufacturing, the second part is the parts supplier, and the third part is the United Air Lines airline group. After having a separate airline, they needed a new president to fresh sta...
Northwest Airlines is one of the pioneers in the airline transportation industry and is ranked at the fourth largest air carrier in the United States today. The success of the carrier depends on the quality and reliability of the service at a reasonable price. Close competitors force Northwest to innovate their services by increasing efficiency. This essay will try to examine different perspectives in the services needed to successfully complete the company’s objectives. The analysis will explain historical and financial perspectives that may give a better understanding of the current market trend of the organization.
As aviation matured, airlines, aircraft manufacturers and airport operators merged into giant corporations. When cries of "monopoly" arose, the conglomerates dismantled.
The significance of the problem is the Rigid System implemented by the Civil Aeronautics Board favored the airline companies but the passengers were forced to pay escalating fares (Passeri). Congress was concerned that in the long term that airline travel would fall to the same path that railroads did, which resulted in the largest bankruptcy in history with the collapse of the Penn Central Railroad (Passeri). IV. Development of Alternative
Airline and travel industry profitability has been strapped by a series of events starting with a recession in business travel after the dotcom bust, followed by 9/11, the SARS epidemic, the Iraq wars, rising aviation turbine fuel prices, and the challenge from low-cost carriers. (Narayan Pandit, 2005) The fallout from rising fuel prices has been so extreme that any efficiency gains that airlines attempted to make could not make up for structural problems where labor costs remained high and low cost competition had continued to drive down yields or average fares at leading hub airports. In the last decade, US airlines alone had a yearly average of net losses of $9.1 billion (Coombs, 2011).
Delta Airlines was founded by C.E. Woolman, who was an agriculture extension agent. He was not as aggressive,
UATC was then forced to be dismantled in 1934 when the Air Mail Act banned manufacturers and commercial companies to be combined, creating a monopoly. UATC was then broken into United Airlines, Boeing, and United Aircraft. After the break-up, Bill Boeing sold his stock and resigned from his leadership position. Boeing was falling on tough times again and then World War 2 broke out and the company was rejuvenated with good health producing plenty of planes and having women working in factories.
This was a sad day for everyone in both the immediate and extended “Delta family,” a day perhaps as sad in its own way as the death of Mr. Woolman almost 40 years before. The sadness mixes with fear by employees and retirees, their families, stockholders, customers, vendors, taxpayers, governments and all others among the tens of thousands impacted by the bankruptcy. Leadership decisions by Delta’s Board and CEO’s over a long period of years laid the foundation for Delta to be in a position where the factors would have a large enough impact to result in bankruptcy. By promoting Ron Allen to CEO, primarily because he had moved up the chairs in the company through Beeb’s efforts, the Board showed their lack of awareness of the need for a strategist to deal with the fundamental changes taking place in the airline industry. Then the Board brought in Leo Mullin and gave him free rein for 6 ½ years to turn a cash rich company into one in such poor shape financially that his successor had to turn to expensive sources of money to keep the company
The perennial crisis in the airline industry: Deregulation and innovation. Order No. 3351230, Claremont Graduate University). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses,, 662-n/a. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/304861508?accountid=8364.
Since its first grand opening in 1971, Southwest Airlines has shown steady growth, and now carries more passengers than any other low-cost carrier in the world (Wharton, 2010). To expand the business operations, Southwest Airlines took over AirTran in 2010 as a strategy to gain more market share for the Southeast region and international flights. However, the acquisition of AirTran brought upcoming challenges both internally and externally for Southwest Airlines. In this case analysis, the objectives are to focus on the change process post the merger with AirTran, and to evaluate alternatives to address the impacts of the merger. II.
As Boeing’s CEO, Frank Shrontz promised to increase earnings and return on equity. Boeing had a history of making money when its competitors did not, but Mr. Shrontz wanted higher returns. The airline industry was characterized by large cash outflows for R&D and manufacturing and long payback periods over long life cycles for each new airframe design. Companies had to have deep pockets to keep the operation going while waiting for a return on their investments. If Mr. Shrontz could increase the return on equity for Boeing, it would increase the likelihood of Boeing’s continued success well into the future.