Airline Industry

Industry Overview

History of Airline Industry

In 1903, the Wright brothers' first successful flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina marked the beginning of the aviation industry. In the early years, the public did not embrace airplane travel as an option, thinking that it was too dangerous. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh successfully completed his first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean and created a massive interest in flying with the general public. After this, a variety of air transport holding companies began, including Aviation Corporation. The air transport division of the company was called American Airways and later grew to become American Airlines, one of the largest commercial carriers in the United States. In 1928, what was to become another leading air transport company was created as a holding company by Boeing and its air transport division, United Aircraft and Transportation Corporation. In 1931 the four air transport divisions of United Aircraft became United Airlines.

Overview of Airline Industry

Air travel grew at a rapid pace until 2001, expanding from 172 million passengers in 1970 to nearly 642 million in 2003. However over the next 3 years, a combination of factors including the events of September 11, 2001 and an economic recession combined to reduce air travels. Despite all the troubles the Airlines have had, air travel remains one of the most popular modes of transportation to date.

SWOT Analysis

According to the University of South Australia's website, a SWOT analysis is defined as, "A critical set of steps in a planning exercise is to perform internal assessments (including an analysis of performance against previous plan) and external assessments (including an analysis of the operating environment) that result in the identification of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats through what is termed a SWOT Analysis. This is a complex analysis which involves matching external possibilities with internal capabilities.

The goal of a SWOT Analysis is to identify internal and external factors that are important to achieving a certain objective within the company (Wikipedia, 2007). The strengths and weakness are the internal factors being observed, and the opportunities and threats are the external factors. This analysis is a good tool for looking at a business as a whole picture. Below is a SWOTT Analysis of the U.S. airline industry. The information in the analysis was obtained from

Strengths

1. Ability to survive two or more years with growth in annual profitability (increasing positive net profits).