The first thing the airline must do is look at the firm supply. If they are to continue the flights from those two hubs then they must determine if at some point in the long run the firm must be profitable or should exit the market. (Brickley et al., 2009, p. 181) Since I would assume that the costs of that route would be quite high it would appear that it would be extremely difficult for them to make a profit especially since there are lower cost airlines that customers could do business with. A competitive firm should produce
TITLE OF ASSIGNMENT CRAFTING AND EXECUTING STRATEGY STUENT MOHAMMAD HOSSAIN INSTRUCTOR DR. RHONDA POLAK COURSE TITLE STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT –BUS 599 DATE: - OCTOBER 16, 2011 Discuss the trends in the U.S. airline industry and how these trends might impact a company’s strategy. Trends in the US airline industry have an impact the performance and strategies of the airlines. As a result, the Jet Blue has struggled to survive. The trends of U.S. airlines industries are discussed as follows: (1) Increased crude oil pricing: fluctuations crude oil price lead to passenger fees for revenue generation, This dramatic price increase caused airlines to struggle to offset the cost of fuel. Presently, gas prices have dropped.
In JetBlue case, the current economy situation creates high market entry barriers, which consists extremely high fixed cost and numerous capital requirement. Moreover, the potential and existing competitors affect the industry has a low profit margin, and it is difficult for new entrances to differentiate their products and services from competitors. The bargaining power of supplier is high. The key inputs for the airline industry are the fuel and aircrafts. Boeing and Airbus dominate the aircraft manufacturing industry.
The weakness of Kudler Fine Foods is that an IPO (Initial Public Offering) has many inherent and potential weaknesses that must be examined prior to selection as a means for expansion. An IPO is the first sale of stock by a company. There are many advantages and disadvantages for the Kudler Fine Foods to go public through the IPO. The advantages include generating more capital needed to expand their three locations The IPOs are very expensive undertaking, and a large portion of any capital acquired will be lost to this cost. Because the company must produce all financial information to the SEC many businesses find it to be very stressful and time consuming which takes time and money away from a company that is thriving like Kudler Fine Foods.
Going public when the airline industry are still suffering from 9.11 attack is adventurous, especially it is even harder when the competition of the airline industry is severe, given the fact that 87 new-airline failure over the past 20 years. However, JetBlue has good management team with strong capability, and it has considerable competitive advantage compared to comparable companies, hence there are more opportunities and strengths than threats and weaknesses. JetBlue’s executive management team have rich experience in the airline industry. CEO David Neeleman has extensive experience with airline start-ups and worked in various low-fare flights. COO David Barger and CFO John Owen had worked in airline companies before joining JetBlue.
In the aviation industry key components have changed over the past decade. With uncertainty in the airline industry with deregulation, privatization, and skyrocketing fuel prices - successful planning of a winning strategy has never been more needed in the aviation industry. With the airline industry in disarray deregulation only added frustrations and negative impacts of aviation. Finances in the airline industry have struggled greatly in the past ten years due to the economic crisis that started in 2008. There are many incidents which were currently affecting the aviation industry which are wage inequality, and monetary, fiscal, and federal policies all having a current impact.
The cost minimisation strategy employed by British airways during the recession proved to be an influential choice. It forced BA to be sensitive and cautious about cost and the passengers' volume has been cut down in terms of business and tour travellers. The industry competition is getting fiercer as by the joining of the lower cost airliners which indicates BA has to master the value creation process, or the value chain, with business perspective and cautious. In addition, the cares on the stakeholders in each stage of the business should be paid attention to, or it may leads to the negative impact to BA such as the staff strike took place in January 2007, which gives BA's brand image a big shock. These cuts the company has to make resulted in employee dissatisfaction.
I. KEY ISSUE In 2007, the CEO of JetBlue Airways, David Barger, faced an immediate survival issue as the company struggled to overcome a major operational failure during a difficult time in the airline industry when fuel prices were increasing tremendously and the profitability levels were low. Barger knew he should move quickly to maintain the confidence of customers, employees, and shareholders. He considered the option of reducing either E190 or A320 deliveries in order to maintain low costs as the company was not ready to continue growth in the E190 regional market segment. II.
What are the forces driving competition in the airline industry? Using this approach to industry analysis discussed in this chapter, evaluate each of the six forces in the task environment to ascertain what drives the level of competitive intensity in this industry. Threat of New Entrants – Low Larger, and more established airlines can achieve economies of scale since they can spread costs among a larger fleet of airplanes and more routes. Smaller firms and new entrants will have to make do with specific routes; otherwise, they can run into logistical problems if they take on a wide variety of routes while they are still starting up. Most airline customers travel for vacation or holiday, and plane fares are a more important criterion rather than product/service differentiation between the airlines.
Due to rebound of travel budgets, airlines are now competing for premium customers. Business Class customers are now the main source of income to airlines, and its even difficult for passengers to find business-class seats available. As Eric Shaver, a managing director for a consulting and training firm called Kensei Partners, says, " It has been harder to get up-graded to first class these days because so many frequent fliers are crowding the air." So he had seen evidence of this trend this year. He continues, "On flight back from London last year, there were five rows of empty seats.