A study of two airline carriers and reasons for their failure
Air India (Public Ownership):
This enterprise was started as the Tata Airlines. Later acquired partly by the Indian Government, it was set up a joint sector company, Air India International in early 1948. Also the nationalization of Indian Airlines (IA) in 1953 brought the domestic civil aviation sector under the purview of Indian Government. This nationalization was expected to spur growth, promote economic activity, rush assistance in times of natural calamities like flood, famine and earthquake, foster national integration and, above all, serve as the second line of defense in the event of war with another country.
These Government-owned airlines dominated Indian aviation industry till the mid-1990s. In the 1990’s the liberalization of the economy of the country and subsequently the aviation industry caused the entry of many private players including Jet Airways, SpiceJet, Indigo, Kingfisher etc. This also helped bring along foreign investment as international market opened up in terms of bilateral liberalization. The downfall of Indian Airlines is prevalent from this period onwards.
Air India currently operates a fleet of 113 aircraft, making it one of the largest airlines (by fleet size) in Asia and the world. It was once the largest operator in the Indian subcontinent with a market share of over 60%. Due to several reasons studied below, its standing dropped with a decline in domestic market share by 25%. However, after financial restructuring and enforcement of strict rules and regulations, the airlines showed signs of turning around. The airlines bolstered its financial and physical performance with a 44% slash in its operating losses in 2013-...
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4) http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/kingfisher-airlines-crisis-timeline/article4636635.ece
5) http://www.slideshare.net/ckhattar/kingfisher-airlines-a-case-study
6) http://bhatianeha.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/9/4/13947202/air_india.pdf
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9) http://centreforaviation.com/analysis/kingfisher-airlines-going-against-the-trend-with-plans-to-exit-low-cost-business-by-jan-2012-59725
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American Airlines and US Airways are in the aviation industry. Both companies provide air transportation services for passengers and freight. Together they have formed American Airlines Group, Inc., the world’s largest airline, as measured by revenue passenger miles (RPMs) and available seat miles (ASMs). In 2012 the U.S. airline industry was worth approximately $195billion in operating revenue, up from $154billion in 2009, including an operating fleet of 3,451 aircraft.1
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.
In lights of the PESTLE model, the political factors bring both opportunities and threats to Jetstar’s new proposal. Since this proposal focus on the Australia-India low price airline market, the analysis conducts involving Australia and India political environments. There are two potential opportunities in this political environment. Firstly, the Australian government has the incentive to boost the development of tourism between the two countries (Tourism Australia 2012). With the support of government, the start of the new route could be easier. For example, American government erects legislation to increase competition of the airport ‘by forcing these airports to increase the availability of scarce facilities’ (Williams 2015). Such legislations and regulations as well as financing investment or subsidies from government could directly help the airline company cut the cost. Similarly, Australian government could also have powerful intervention to influence aviation market. Thus, it is a big opportunity for Jetstar to the new route expansion if it acquires the
Operating an air - express transportation industry requires large capital investments, and therefore it can impede the entry of new firms into the industry. For one, Airborne has already its own set of aircrafts and even operate its own airport, and it would be hard for a new firm to compete with this.
...o, A. (2008), ‘Boeing , Tata Industries Announce India Joint Venture’, Industry Week. Available at: http://www.industryweek.com/articles/boeing_tata_industries_announce_india_joint_venture_15820.aspx [Accessed 20 March 2011].
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).
The Five forces in the airline industry can be easily broken down, firstly the threat of new entrants. Over the last 10 years there has been a huge influx of new low cost companies in Europe such as “Easyjet”, or “Ryan Air” as the low cost niche slowly becomes more full we are seeing less and less entrants since the market has become saturated. The better an airlines brand image, such as British Airways being a recognised name and the use of frequent flier or airmiles schemes the less likely a new entrant with lower prices will be able to break into the market. Next we have Supplier and buyer power in the industry. In terms of the suppliers of aircraft the main two are Airbus and Boeing and so it may seem that this few suppliers would have a lot of power over the airlines, but intact it tends to just increase the competition between the suppliers as they fight for major contracts with the big airlines. The bargaining power of customers in the
Lufthansa, one of the world’s biggest airliners, has divisions handing maintenance, catering and air cargo. Since the World War II the airline industry has never earned its cost of capital over the business cycle (Hitt, 2010). Most of the airline companies have either filed for bankruptcy or are being bailed out by their government. Lufthansa had also gone through these tough times, but had resurfaced to become one of the worlds most profitable airline company. The company adapted a transnational strategy, seeking to achieve both global efficiency and local responsiveness. Lufthansa’s monopoly in Germany came to a halt with the creating of the European Union. All the EU member countries become one regional and therefore the European competition became, an increasingly a local competition. Lufthansa created its regional Hubs, to cater for its domestic market. But the availability of substitutes such as bullet trains and the Euro tunnel, made is necessary for Lufthansa to create short traveling time, customizations and quality standards in the region to achieve a competitive advantage. But outside the EU there are no substitute to air travels as such all the flag carriers are competing in the market, the international airline industry is a highly competitive environment. A new force has also emerged in the world of air travel, in the form of three Gulf airlines with jumbo ambitions. Within a decade Dubai’s Emirates, Qatar Airways and Eithad from Abu Dhabi have between them carried the capacity of two hundred million passengers (Micheal, 2010). The company had to go global and therefore adopted the international corporate-level strategy, where Lufthansa will ope...
The airline industry is a costly business to partake in especially due to the cost of fuel and technology needed to operate the airplane. With EasyJet internationalizing into Africa, it had the notion of facing new competitors, however, with the finances (see appendix) it possesses and the famous identity of its brand, made the threat of being a new entry within the Nigerian market low. However, a big threat would be if local Nigerian airlines were to reduce its prices then EasyJet might be at risk because the local airlines have the necessary equipment and knowledge to operate in its region.
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.
Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) was founded by Vijay Malaya and he is the chairman of United Breweries group (UB group) in the year 2003. Its first airplane was launched from Mumbai to Delhi in 9th may 2005. It started as a premium business class airline company. The airlines have a tag line “Fly the good times”. At the launch of airline, Vijay Malaya said “we are committed to achieving our ambition of making Kingfisher Airlines, India’s largest private airline both in capacity and market share. The airline ushered in a new era of luxury in India’s domestic aviation sector and its brand new aircraft with stylish red interiors, and smartly dressed crew and ground staff. Kingfisher was the first Indian airline to have in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems”. (Malaya, 2005). Kingfisher airlines are one of the seven airlines which were awarded the rating of five stars by skytrax. It operates 400 flights daily including the regional and international services. In 2009 it gave the highest market share in Indian airlines industries, carrying more than 1 million passengers. The main mistake was lack of understanding of customer requirements and luxurious facilities in airlines. Organizations focus on reducing costs and usually just CEO’S and top level managers prefer business class travel. Rest of the staff mostly travels by economy class. Moreover, buying most expensive business class tickets doesn’t go down well, when seniors aim to project the image of walking the talk. Secondly, the company is facing financial crisis since Mid-2008. After merging with Air Deccan in 2007, it is a low-cost airlines, provides minimum frills to customers at reasonable rates. Th...
Several large scale, interrelated conditions have affected the airline industry over the past several years in such a manner that every carrier has had to respond in order to remain viable and competitive.
Air India airline is one of the biggest airline in the India. It was established by the famous company TATA and since its incorporation. It has grown very well and has spread all over the world in the different destinations. It has become the reputable brand in the airline industry with having the operations over 152 destinations. It has link up connection in the 35 countries and it has currently having 137 fleets. This company becomes the public limited company in the 1946. The company has international and the local route and its performance is increasing day by day with the pace of the good growth as compare to the other airlines in the industries in the area and the channels in which this airline is working.
In India, one can never over-look the political factors which influence each and every industry existing in the country. Like it or not, the political interference has to be present everywhere. Given below are a few of the political factors with respect to the airline industry:
AirAsia Berhad (AirAsia) is a leading Low-Cost Carrier in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region. AirAsia focuses on providing high-frequency services on short-haul domestic and international routes. The main goal of this paper is to analyse the business strategy of AirAsia as a low-cost airline. This paper aims to apply the management process of strategy and analyse the three levels of strategy by which AirAsia is able to maintain its reputation as the top Low-Cost Carrier (LCC) in Asia. This paper will then show how innovation is a key aspect in AirAsia’s strategy, and will finally consider the external environment framework in which AirAsia is succeeding.