Business Class vs Economy Class As a farewell to “the biggest fight in combat sports history”, we’ve decided to revise one of the longest and severest fights in the history of the airline industry: business class vs economy class. Who takes home the victor’s belt - practical, low-cost economy class or extravagant, luxury and comfort prioritizing business class? To see who gets a takedown, let’s learn what tricks and techniques - in terms of seats, services, and check-in facilities - each has mastered to impress YOU, the judge. Economy Class: Airline Class for Masses Why would somebody call economy class - cattle class, when the majority of passengers take up exactly economy class seats? How justified is this name-calling, and does economy …show more content…
But we still haven’t answered that question - why cattle class; have we? Business Class: Airline Class for Those Who Love the Journey They say that if you fly business class once, you’ll never be happy in the economy again! We have no idea who are they, but we have at least a slight understanding of why they would say so. But once again - let facts speak for themselves! Business Class Seats Usually, business class seats have the following parameters: the width - 70 to 80 inches, the pitch - 48 to 60 inches, the recline - 150 to 180 degrees. To put it simply, business class passengers can enjoy themselves in comfortable seats convertible to lay-flat beds, with a lot of space for legs (you can do splits there), and the opportunity to relax and sleep as if they were in their own bed. Oh, and each seat has a power outlet - a life support system to keep your laptop breathing during the whole
Many people have issues with flying. Some are nervous that the plane might not make it to its destination while others think of flying as an overpriced, uncomfortable, and unpleasant experience. Than there are those who can afford to make their flight experience much more luxurious which are the passengers flying in business class or in first class. These are passengers that get the champagne in the plastic glasses and the chairs that stretch all the way out. David Sedaris is able to paint this picture of entitlement and lack of comfort throughout his article “Journey into Night.”
Superheroes and villains are not commonly associated with airlines, but in the article “A Tale of Two Airlines” by Christopher Elliot, it is put into a different perspective. The two airlines in question are Spirit and Southwest. Although both have some similarities, they both have considerably different views on how to treat customers. Southwest practices treating customers with respect, while fares may be a little higher. Spirit’s beliefs are to treat customers “like cargo” with lower fares. With their friendly attendants and better overall customer interaction, this appoints Southwest as the hero, making Spirit our villain. Elliot makes his point by exclaiming the “heroes” should be rewarded with a higher multitude of passengers and the “villains” should not be granted this satisfaction.
The airline industry has long attempted to segment the air travel market in order to effectively target its constituents. The classic airline model consists of First Class, Business Class and Economy, and the demographics that make up the classes have both similarities and differences to the other classes. For instance, there may be similarities between business class travellers on a particular flight, but they will not all be travelling for the same reason. An almost-universal characteristic of air travel is that customers do not fly for the sake of flying; the destination is the important element and the travel is a by-product, a means-to-an-end that involves the necessity of an aircraft that gets the customer from point A to point B. Because the reasons can differ greatly in the motivations for a customer wanting to fly, it can be difficult to divide the market into discrete segments, that is, there is always going to be overlap in the preferences and characteristics of any given segment. With that in mind, the commonalities that are shared between the clientele that make up the respective classes can easily withstand analysis.
Spirit addresses “price” by attempting to get the lowest possible fair for their potential customers. They have instituted their “unbundling” strategy that essentially removes all the conveniences that other airlines afford. Fees for checked bags, fees for flight changes, and no complementary in-flight beverages are just a few of the cost-trimming techniques employed. This strategy allows Spirit to come up with impossibly low fares. It also conforms to customers who just want to get from point A to point B without paying extra for services they don’t use. This strategy, coupled with an in-your-face “promotion” ploy, has made Spirit Airlines “the most profitable airline in the U.S.” (Nicas, 2012).
The airline does not serve meals on board, and there are no luxurious or first class seats offered. Services like these have been seen by the airline as unnecessary for an airline that provides a short-haul trip from city to city. By this, Southwest was able to offer low price tickets to customers, which was good for the company because most people would prefer to fly without those services mentioned if it meant for cheaper ticket prices. Even though Southwest offers no-frills, there is still a high degree of customer satisfaction that continuously builds customer loyalty for the company. As mentioned, Southwest offers low prices on their airline tickets.
Class is often seen as the income or lifestyle that people fit into; but by creating such a vague definition for class, we lose sight of the reasons that the different classes exist. Even more than that, the general population has been led to believe that classes are a thing of the past-something that used to be important, but is now just a term economists use that has no effect our lives.
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).
Air travel began in the early 1900s and scheduled flights started in the 1920s (Harris). In the early years, the airline industry competition was nonexistent. The competitive environment changed dramatically over the course of the last century specifically when the industry underwent regulation and then deregulation. The future success of the airline industry depends on the ability to adapt with rapidly changing industry environmental factors.
If the short haul passenger was the backbone of Southwest Airlines success, then their 737s were the lifelines that supported it. By choosing the 737 as the airplane for all of Southwest's flights, the company saved time and resources in training its employees. The crew could be easily substituted for one another due to the extensive training on the 737. Low costs and, therefore, low fares are an enormous competitive advantage, when combined with their high-quality and loyal workforce. A very unique culture was found at Southwest Airlines among all of its employees.
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.
Flight fee is one of the biggest nightmares of the passenger. In this regard, such an initiative is a win-win situation for the Asiana airlines. The establishment of extensive cabin retrofits is also a great improvement to the customer service delivery. The airline also boosts customer experience in a bid to achieve the airline’s sustainability through the provision of lie-flat seats. The seats boost comfort for the passengers aboard; hence, reduction of exhaustion. According to Asian Development Bank (2009), the airline provides the passengers with a sizeable monitor, especially for the business class passengers. The practical productivity of team relies on upon its hypothetical planning, information of an aeronautical building, and tenets of its operation, including exceptional circumstances, and propensities for utilization of this learning, furthermore on order and determination of pilot-in-charge of aircraft and group individuals. The administration productivity air movement, the associations of flight action and a wide range of upkeep of aircraft in the greatest degree is controlled by the proficiency of the action association in the modern undertakings, cognizance of initiators, and the moral obligation of leaders of all positions for action concerning security control of
“AirTran Airways, a subsidiary of AirTran Holdings (NYSE: AAI), is a low-fare airline designed for business travelers, offering Business class, new planes with XM Satellite Radio and EasyFit Overhead Bins, assigned seats, and our accommodating frequent flier program A+ Rewards. AirTran Airways' mix of low fares and an affordable Business Class with excellent customer service and one of the world's youngest all-Boeing fleets has continued to strike a chord with the public.” (www.airtran.com)
1- Issues The main issue of this case is the lack of profits of the airline industry, an industry that should be more than profitable due to the large amount of customers, the necessity of using airlines’ services and the high prices charged by most of these airlines. What we are going to deal with is, why is this happening? And how is American airlines dealing with this problem?. To be able to discuss how American airlines wants to regain profitability, we must identify and analyse different issues such as, the company’s background, the airline industry as a whole, the demand for air travel, the marketing strategies, the distribution systems, pricing policies etc.
In a dysfunctional time for the airline industry, most airlines, especially major carriers, are adapting the concept of "doing less with more." One low-cost carrier, JetBlue, is changing the domestic aviation landscape in this regard and is defying the odds. Here is a company that has examined each marketing mix elements carefully, has adapted them to its customer’s needs, and is succeeding because of this approach.
.British Airways were the pioneers with the introduction of space beds. To keep the Singapore Airlines to continue be a leader in providing the greatest comfort service to customers, it is our recommendation that Singapore Airline should continue with the installation of the space beds as this will keep them on top of the game with their main competitors. Furthermore, for an airline's long term Business Class customers to be taken seriously, the company should offer the comfort, of either the same value or even higher, to their customers. The drawback of the larger seats (space beds) would decrease the number of seats in the business class area of a jumbo jet from 58 to 50. However, installation of spacebeds ( in long term) will hopefully bring higher income to the Singapore Airlines because of the higher seat utilization.