SWOT ANALYSIS PART III

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Virgin Atlantic SWOT Analysis

Michael D. White

Excelsior College

Introduction

Virgin Atlantic is an airline company from Britain owned by a top businessman known as Richard Branson. The parent company for Virgin Atlantic Airline is the Virgin Group that exists in the international market category. Leading unique selling points for the airline company comprise of premium airline, the upper middle class, in addition to the middle class categories. According to the organization background review, it is evident that Virgin Atlantic primarily targets reliability and passengers seeking comfort market segments as part of its target market segment. Preferred target groups comprise of Corporates, the upper middle class category, in addition to the middle class. Looking at the company’s position, it is evident that the airline company concentrates on the premium services that focus on customer experience as well as hospitality. In comparison with other passenger carrier airplanes, Virgin Atlantic is considered to be the seventh largest. Ever since its foundation, the airplane has carried approximately 5.4 million passengers in its different classes.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

Virgin Atlantic depicts the ability to uphold a strong brand value through propagating the cool image that has been influenced by the owner. The airline maintains a remarkable image by making certain it remains appealing to the contemporary generation as well as exuberate factors such as vigor along with youthfulness. Being an industry trendsetter is an appropriate factor that is essential in airline business that most companies have failed to take into consideration. The ability to concentrate on quality is another ideal strength that is identifiable with the Virgin Atlantic ensures the company is constantly observing music quality despite the availability. Positioning is an important part that is easily identifiable when running operations in the airline industry. The company is stationed as the source of revenue brand despite the tickets being costly when compared to its rival organization (Carter, 2013). Virgin Atlantic ascertains that its service quality along with personalized attention directed towards customers is top notch to make the brand standout from its rivals. The ability to maintain multiple customer clusters is another relevant part of the strengths since it has three clusters that consist of economy, premium, in addition to luxury categories. Through making certain that the airline company ramps up and down its service quality as well as level of personalizing the organization has been the source of providing diverse standards of services for each category. Lastly, customer satisfaction has been another reliable strength aligned with the successful operations of Virgin Atlantic in the global market.

Weaknesses

Financial challenges have been the main weaknesses affiliated with the Atlantic Airlines in the present day following issues associated with Brexit that are likely to result in financial difficulties considering that the organization is spending more in dollars. Poor differentiation is another relevant weakness aligned with the business operations of the Virgin Atlantic organization. Despite having been a pioneer once in the airline market segment, the organization was incapable of developing solid dissimilarities (Jobber & Ellis-Chadwick, 2019). Most organization in the airline sector has been employing similar strategies that are associated with the strategies employed at Virgin Atlantic. The notion of the airline being expensive among various categories of customers is an alarming weakness that may limit the organization to accomplishing its objects.

Opportunities

The airline company has multiple opportunities that consist of avenues within its environment surrounding business operations. An alteration in customer preferences is an appealing opportunity that has greater likelihood of changing the airline organizational preferences. With more experts finding their way to the corporate world, then business scopes are likely to continue growing (Antonetti et al., 2017). Various categories of customers are willing to spend an extra dollar on plane seats in case they fall under the category of individuals comfortable with travelling.

Threats

Competition is the greatest challenge that the Virgin Atlantic has to consider in its business model as it continues to deal with the excess pressure from competitors such as Lufthansa, Fly Emirates, the British Airways, and Air France among others. Through Brexit, it turns out that the conditions of the airline company remain to be crucial (Antonetti et al., 2017). Conditions brought about by Brexit exhibited a sudden dip from the number of customers travelling overseas.

Conclusion

Since the airline company is an industry trendsetter is an appropriate factor that is essential in airline business that most companies have failed to take into consideration. Virgin Atlantic is stationed as the source of revenue brand despite the tickets being costly when compared to its rival organization. By making certain that the airline company ramps up and down its service quality as well as level of personalizing the organization has been the source of providing diverse standards of services for each category. Multiple organizations in the airline sector has been employing similar strategies that are associated with the strategies employed at Virgin Atlantic.

References

Carter, S. J. (2013). Marketing Plan Example: Virgin Atlantic Little Red. Germany: GRIN Verlag.

Jobber, D., & Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2019). EBOOK: Principles and Practice of Marketing, 9e. Spain: McGraw-Hill Education.

Antonetti, P., Baines, P., Fill, C., & Rosengren, S. (2017). Fundamentals of Marketing. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.