When Frontier got its “restart” back in 1994, the idea was that the airline would be a small, regional airline. After going through many ups and downs associated with the cyclical nature of the airline industry and facing Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Frontier needed to change some things. Finally, in 2013, Indigo Partners acquired Frontier Airlines and immediately began the process of making the airline an ultra-low-cost-carrier or ULCC. Frontier is still facing the growing pains of being a ULCC and is still trying to get settled in. Some of these growing pains include having to compete within the same market against other ULCCs like Spirit or Allegiant, and also against the big airlines that feel the encroachment of the ULCCs on their market shares, …show more content…
The product in this case is a service, a service of providing a flight from one place to another. For Frontier, they look to provide this service cheaper than most other airlines by operating in the most efficient and cost effective way possible to help keep fares low and revenue and profits high. One of the ways Frontier does this is by adding seats to their fleet of aircraft, creating more available seats per mile or ASM, and with more ASM results in more revenue per mile or RPM. Combine more seats with their cheap fares and lately the result is a high loadfactor, which is desired to make the most amount of revenue possible per flight. Unfortunately, one of the results of the extra seats, Frontiers’ “product” gives passengers less legroom and comfort afforded to them, resulting in many complaints by customers. Even with the amount of complaints, and Frontier has one of the highest complaint rates per enplanement but the cheap fares keep customers coming back and Frontiers flights full (CAPA Centre for Aviation, 23 October …show more content…
As previously mentioned, ULCCs make the customer pay extra for many things associated with air travel outside of base fare. However, with many airlines offering discounts, one way a customer can save money with Frontier is to not pay as much for adding things like a carry-on by purchasing into their new marketing promotion called “The Works”. The Works allows customers to bundle items outside of base fare but gives a greater discount than if one were to purchase the extras at a later time or individually. Currently The Works includes: priority boarding, one checked and one carry-on bag, seat selection, refundability, and no change fees, resulting in up to a 60% savings to the individual
Their extra space sit it may cost a little bit more; however customers don’t have to pay for a double sit price. Although I am don’t agree with the policy base on heavier customers. People must be aware that airlines, works base on weight regulations they have to have the exact amount of weight that way the impact of incorrectly calculating an aircraft’s load increases in significance as the size of the aircraft decreases and thus the contrary effects of underestimating loads are likely to affect smaller piston airplane much more meaningfully than large jet-powered aircraft. Another example is International airlines such as Air Canada addresses this issue more amicably: Because the airline considers obesity a medical condition, it provides overweight passengers with a free extra seat as long as they present a doctor 's note. (Barnes,
Frontier airlines marketing utilizes the 4Ps within the constraints that were listed in the module slides. The product, for all intents and purposes, is the seat, in motion from one place to another. If that seat goes unfilled, it is not stored for later use, but goes bad, like fruit. This is a similar issue of production that hotels face. The unit is constantly produced and expiring, with no option not to produce it if it will not be sold (with the exception of scaling back service on, or closing, a route. Additionally, it is a consumer based product, so frontier needs to be sensitive to the desires of the customer, because there are many choices when flying into and out of Denver.
As Frontier approached its 10th year of operation, Frontier officials realized an image shift was in order. The airline had established a reputation for friendly and reliable service, and reasonable airfares, mainly appealing to leisure travelers. But they reali...
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).
In today's competitive marketplace, all firms are seeking ways to improve their overall performance. One such method of improvement, recently adopted by many firms, is benchmarking. Benchmarking is a technique used to evaluate internal business processes. "In this analysis, managers determine the firm's critical processes and outputs, baseline those processes, then compare the performance of each process against a standard outside the industry" (Bounds, Yorks, Adams, & Ranney 1994). To effectively improve a business process to world-class quality, managers must find a firm that is recognized as a global leader, not just the industry standard. Successful benchmarking requires tailor-made solutions, not just blind copying of another organization. Measurement and interpretation of data collected is the key to creating business process solutions.
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 airplane tickets. Also, Southwest is renowned in the airline industry for its short turnaround time on arrivals and departures. And since people's biggest concern nowadays is money and time, having low price airline tickets to cater their traveling needs in a shorter period of time will surely satisfy them. Moreover, aside from the low prices offered, what attracts to customers is Southwest’s way in dealing with them. The employees of the airline treat their customers well and really listen to their needs.
Since 1987, when the Department of Transportation began tracking Customer Satisfaction statistics, Southwest has consistently led the entire airline industry with the lowest ratio of complaints per passengers boarded. Many airlines have tried to copy Southwest’s business model, and the Culture of Southwest is admired and emulated by corporations and organizations in all walks of life. Always the innovator, Southwest pioneered Senior Fares, a same-day air freight delivery service, and Ticketless Travel. Southwest led the way with the first airline web page—southwest.com, DING, the first-ever direct link to Customer’s computer desktops that delivers live updates on the hottest deals, and the first airline corporate blog, Nuts About Southwest. Our Share the Spirit community programs make Southwest the hometown airline of every city we serve.
Is change going to keep Qantas in the air, or force them to the ground?
“Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable.” William Pollard’s, a 20th century physicist, words show us the power of being proactive, and igniting change to strengthen a company’s productive climate (Sellers, Boone, Harper, 2011). Acme Airlines flight attendants lacked incentive to improve the quality of their work, as a result of distrustful management and overall frustration within the company. Acme took successful steps to rebuild their FA program into a more relationship oriented work environment. Through an understanding of effective leadership, we will use the
Southwest Airlines is competing with "Shuttle by United" head to head in about 9 routes. United has just announced that it is discontinuing its Oakland - Ontario route and hiking the fares in all the 14 routes by $10, which calculated to be 14.5% increase in the fare. Southwest has to respond effectively to these unexpected developments and has to act accordingly while maintaining their current low fare image and increasing their daily operating profits. We have considered the elasticity of the market to be 1.15.
Before to select the proper alternative, three alternatives were analysed and evaluated under four decisions criteria: customer experience, cost, growth rate / market penetration and ease to implementation (See Exhibit 2: Factor Analysis). Between all the alternatives, it was suggested that Southwest Airlines enters to New York City by bidding the slots and gates at the LGA (See Exhibit 3: Alternatives Analysis). This alternative sustains the challenge of changing the customer experience which means adding more flights from and to the East; furthermore, entering to new markets will reinforce “the power of the network” through LGA. At the same time, this decision will allow signing more code-sharing agreements with other airlines flying to international destinations and offer new products and services to LUV customers as loyalty rewards, in-flight internet, onboard duty-free purchases, etc.; as a result of this, it will increase passenger’s insights and experiences by flying with Southwest Airlines. Nevertheless, there is potential risk by selecting this alternative, in the recent years the energy prices has had a huge increase affecting costs, fares and even capacity needed, however Southwest Airlines has been able to hedge fuel for decad...
Southwest Airlines strategy of focusing on short haul passenger and providing rates as low as one third of their competitors, they have seen tremendous growth in the last decade. Market share for top city pairs on Southwest's schedule has reached 80% to 85%. Maintaining the largest fleet of 737's in the world and utilizing point-to-point versus the hub-and-spoke method of connection philosophy allowed Southwest to provide their service to more people at a lower cost. By putting the employee first, Southwest has found the key to success in the airline business. A happy worker is a more productive one as well as a better service provider. Southwest will continue to reserve their growth in the future by entering select markets only after careful market research.
There are few things that are impressive about Southwest Airlines first one is how they treat the employees. For Southwest Airlines employees are first and customers are second. If the employees are treated well that will bring in happy customers. Next is that Southwest is not only with their low prices but is able to create a competitive advantage by offering a fun and humorous experience when flying. Finally another impressive fact is when Herb Kelleher’s retire from CEO position yet remained a Southwest employee till July 2014. Even after the retirement he was still active with the Southwest Airlines that reflected his enthusiasm and dedication for the
to major airports but later it went down as PE try to grow faster and
The company’s cost leadership strategy of keeping their fares low to ensure frequent and convenient travel along with its playful, fun poking advertising, exciting promotional ways, and various vibrant ways of operation enabled the company to expand exuded its effect on both customer and competitors, thus lowering the prices in the new market. This is the ‘Southwest