MBAA 523 Advanced Aviation Economics - Written assignment

Written Assignment: Airline Product offering

Airlines offer a variety of products ranging from the no-frills air transportation to international first class featuring amenity-filled cubicles with fully reclining seat/beds and attentive in-flight service. This assignment is intended to illustrate the variety of airline product offerings available and stimulate thinking about how best to serve the diverse wants and needs of passengers.

Europe’s Ryanair is well known for its cheap fares and bare-bones service. Europe’s old line network carriers including British Airways, Air France/KLM and Lufthansa, on the other hand, offer more choices and features within Europe and to major destinations worldwide. In Asia, low-cost-airlines are rapidly expanding in the marketplace. Air Asia and Jetstar are two of the larger LCCs (along with their various subsidiaries). Asia also is home to many full-service airlines such as Japan Airlines, Air China, Cathay Pacific, Singapore, and Korean Air.

In a short research paper, compare and contrast a chosen LCC with a full-service airline using Doganis’ 5 key product features as a framework (price, schedule, comfort, convenience, and image). Choose one or two city-pairs served by both carriers on which to base the comparison. Summarize your findings and emphasize critical differences. Extensive data, such as the ancillary fee structure, may be best presented in a table. Discuss the passenger segment(s) targeted by each airline. Next, compare the airlines’ profit history using a common metric such as margin on total revenue. Conclude with an evaluation of each carrier’s overarching business strategy. Explain your assessment of the most profitable strategy.

Upon reading the paper, a potential passenger should have the information needed to choose between the two airlines on the selected city-pair(s). Note:  Before beginning your research, ensure that the needed data are available from the airlines’ websites and other online sources.

Use APA style including a title page, table(s) or charts as appropriate, citations, reference list, running head, page numbers, and section headings. Of course, an introduction and conclusion are always appropriate. There is no page number requirement, but about six pages, not including title page, reference list, and appendices, should be sufficient.