استكشف المجموعة الواسعة من العناوين المتاحة.

\"Designing Future-Oriented Airline Businesses is the eighth Ashgate book by Nawal K. Taneja to address the ongoing challenges and opportunities facing all generations of airlines. Firstly, it challenges and encourages airline managements to take a deeper dive into new ways of doing business. Secondly, it provides a framework for identifying and developing strategies and capabilities, as well as executing them efficiently and effectively, to change the focus from cost reduction to revenue enhancement and from competitive advantage to comparative advantage\"-Provided by publisher.

The global airline industry, facing significant changes and discontinuity is prompted and forced to deal with a \"new normal.\" Who would have imagined a few years ago that: - a significant percentage of consumers in the US now prefer to fly low-cost airlines instead of full-service airlines because they perceive the product to be better, - airlines would generate up to a third of their total income from non-ticket revenue, - many low-cost airlines would add complexity to their original simple business models through the development of code-share agreements, the use of global distribution systems, and travel agents to distribute their seats, - Jetstar, a low-cost subsidiary of Qantas, would grow faster and be more profitable than its parent, - a survey carried out by Ryanair would show that 42 percent of passengers would be willing to stand on short (one hour) flights if they could pay 50 percent less than seated passengers, - passengers could pay as little as US$2,000 for a transatlantic Business Class ticket on top-brand airlines, - Lufthansa would have ownership in airlines based in Austria, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK, and the US, and that it would continue to pursue equity ownership in airlines based in Poland and Scandinavia, or - the Japanese and Canadian governments would struggle to find different ways to bail out their heretofore flag carriers? To deal with this upcoming \"new normal\", airlines have to go beyond their short-term circumstantial strategies - they need strategic renewal of their ageing business model. In this candidly-written book, Nawal Taneja explains what will separate the winners from the losers. He maintains the leaders will be the airlines that: (1) exploit this crisis-driven change to their best advantage, (2) learn to work around the airline-inherent constraints that prevent them from running their businesses just like other businesses, (3) learn from successes and failures of other global enterprises, (4) sharpen their business intelligence, analytics, and strategic agility, and (5) proactively explore the \"pockets of growth\" in this emerging-markets century. To help airline executives become informed of new competitive games, the author analyzes numerous business sectors such as auto, hospitality, retail, technology, and entertainment. For example, relevant lessons can be learned from the strategic mistakes made by the US automakers. Likewise, emergent and compelling insights can be gained in superior customer experience from Ritz Carlton and Zappos, and in value-creating innovation from Cirque du Soleil and Zipcar. The book also features a multitiude of forewords from airlines and related businesses to provide readers with multiple perspectives on the changing landscape in the global airline industry. Nawal Taneja is a career analyst of the global airline industry with wide-ranging experience in the aviation industry, academia, and public policy. Encouraged by industry executives, he has written five other books for practitioners in the global airline industry, including FASTEN YOUR SEATBELT: The Passenger is Flying the Plane and Flying Ahead of the Airplane.

Although there are clear differences between the automobile and the airline industries, there are also many similarities. The following are just ten of the many similarities. Irrelevant and broken business models (reliance, until recently, on a single approach to manufacturing/operations and selling).

The business model of the traditional legacy carriers (Aer Lingus, Japan Air Lines, US Airways, for example), developed mainly around “one-size-fits-all,” is clearly ageing. Examples of the “onesize-fits-all” include hub-and-spoke systems, multi-class service, multiple types of airplanes, and later, membership in strategic alliances, as well as a new distribution channel, the airline website. In North America and Europe, almost no airline (with the possible exception of Lufthansa) managed to earn sufficient money over the last business cycle. Additionally, in many cases, consumer ratings are poor at best, and the employees do not appear to be enthusiastic about their deteriorating work rules, pension plans, and salaries. Similarly, the business model of the older-generation, low-cost airlines is also ageing, for both the well-established airlines, such as Southwest, and the high-profile airlines, such as Ryanair. In the case of the latter, for example, the business model continues to be based around the “rock bottom” cost structure. It has not been tweaked to generate any “wow” effect with either the carrier’s traditional customers or to attract the cost conscious business travelers.

The current combination of forces affecting the global airline industry is leading airlines to re-evaluate their networks, in some cases to reduce the number and type of markets served, and in other cases to expand the list of destinations served. In either case, the markets under consideration are being explored at different levels, ranging from individual city pairs (evaluated on the number of origin-destination passengers by fare type) to entire countries (those with large populations and growing economies), and, even at the level of continents.

The previous chapter discussed the need for greater innovation, not just to survive, but also to thrive in the new normal. It also discussed the major drivers of innovation shown in Figure 4.1. “Observing trends and experimenting” was one of them. This chapter provides additional detail relating to this area, namely the need to elevate to a much higher level the activities in three capability functions, business intelligence, analytics, and agility. This chapter ends with an example of different ways of pricing airline services based on the merchandizing model.

Nearly every company seems to believe that its customers are placed as a top priority in its organization. Specifically, it has been reported that more than 80 percent of companies believe that they deliver a superior customer experience.1 However, in reality, studies show that only 8 percent of their customers agree,2 and the situation is likely to become worse as companies continue to feel the pressure to reduce their costs. Yet, customer experience has been, and continues to be, a great way for a business to distinguish itself in the crowded marketplace.

Innovation involves looking at new ways of doing things. Although innovations can be brilliant inventions, they often emerge from just looking at a situation from an alternate perspective. Specifically, innovation can take on many forms and can occur at many levels, such as direct changes to a product or service. Examples include 3M with its sticky notes, Qantas with the Business Class in longhaul markets, Virgin Atlantic with the in-flight entertainment at individual seats, Hitachi with the Plasma HDTV, Lufthansa with the all Business Class transatlantic flights, and Amazon with the Kindle e-reader (a device to digitally read books, newspapers, and magazines). Or an innovation can change an entire industry, just as Apple’s iPod changed the music industry, Cirque du Soleil, the Canadian live entertainment company, changed the circus industry, and Nintendo’s Wii changed the video game industry. Yet another form of innovation involves revamping the way in which business is traditionally conducted within an industry. Consider how Enterprise Rent-A-Car changed the car rental landscape by segmenting the market and targeting those in need of transportation due to car repairs as well as travelers, and by offering alternate distribution channels (storefronts in the suburbs rather than kiosks at the airports). Moreover, how about Zipcar, the car-sharing startup, that has totally elevated the concept of personal mobility. Think about how eBay, the online conduit for buying and selling goods, literally turned upside down the traditional second-hand sales channels, such as flea markets and garage sales. EBay’s innovation allows one to buy or sell almost anything, anytime, and anywhere in the world.

Dealing with chaos is hardly a new phenomenon for the global airline industry. During the past four decades alone, it has survived numerous oil price shocks, significant changes in government regulatory policies, new technologies (ranging from aircraft with advanced capabilities to the introduction of the Internet and related businesses), competition from new categories of airlines and aviation, varying lengths and depths of economic cycles, the events of September 11, 2001, diseases such as SARS and H1N1, two wars in the Gulf region, infrastructure constraints and development, and the impact of changing environmental regulations. While the global airline industry has managed to survive, albeit with a growing tendency towards bankruptcies and mergers, it has not managed to earn a sufficient return on the investment deployed to cover its average weighted cost of capital on an ongoing basis. Figure 1.1 shows the net profit margin for the global airline industry for the past 30 years. There are two outof-the-ordinary points to notice in this chart. First, even during the best years, the highest net profit margins achieved were only about 3 percent. Second, on a cumulative basis, the global airline industry did not break even. For the 30 year period, the industry posted a slight negative cumulative net profit margin, a phenomenon unseen in any other industry.