Given that the overarching project, at least before this writer, has to do with the airline industry, the seeming first task was to step back and get a holistic view. Narrowing to just the US, while this may have proven to not be enough narrowing, it was useful to thoroughly explore starting here, nonetheless. These represent all the American carriers I found:
This pursuit exposed sub markets (charters, domestic only, seaplanes, etc.), and yielded no obvious patterns as regards headquarter locations, or any other metric chosen to track. Notes, hyperlinks and even the errata of the securities markets were maintained as we narrowed down.
Similarities and Differences
What was discovered in this preliminary research (which, by its very nature might be overlooked as a pattern) was how complicated and “all over the ‘map’” this industry was.
When we narrow down to just the larger carriers, this pattern continues. The superficial similarities and differences have to do with their customer base markets and the challenges of the industry itself. Everyone is aware of the spiking fuel prices over the last decade; increasing four and five fold. Unless your employ or lifestyle find you flying regularly, most folks simply know “their” airlines (so carriers naturally market to their region … but what if their region is, say harder recession hit, see?).
Reasons
But some of what most folks are not aware of is that Operations drives more than that which was just noted. This is an industry of extremely thin margins. An example:
“…Bob Crandall, the firebrand former chief of American Airlines. And so, let us revive the olive story. Most notorious among Crandall’s legendary cost-cutting was his idea to remove an olive from each salad served to passengers. A tiny garnish would never be missed, the reasoning went, and savings amounted to at least $40,000 a year. ”
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