JetBlue Airways was well on its way to become the premier low fare airline in early 2002. “Despite the fact that the US airline industry had witnessed 87 new airline failures over the previous 20 years” JetBlue had an innovative business model that focused on reducing cost while eliminating “everything that sucked about airline travel.” JetBlue airlines were put together by David Neeleman who “launched a new airline that would bring humanity back to air travel. Neeleman had a lot of prior experience in the airline industry having spent time at Morris air, later acquired by Southwest. Neeleman also used his experience to help launch a startup low fare airline company in Canada known as West Jet. One of JetBlue’s major assets was its commitment to technology. By maintaining a fleet of newer more technologically Airbus A320s “JetBlue’s fleet was not only more reliable and fuel efficient than other airline fleets but also afforded greater economies of scale because the airline had only one model of aircraft.”
The low fare airline business was experiencing significant growth in the early parts of the 21st century. Southwest airlines, with whom Neeleman was briefly employed was the “pioneer in low-fare air travel” and “was the fourth largest carrier in the world.” Several low fare airlines popped up following Southwest airlines success after 9/11. As the market grew many of these companies went public requiring an IPO or initial public offering as a way to increase capital and grow the company. When it came time for JetBlue to go public one of the main issues was how much to issue the stock for.
An initial public offering is the first time the equity of a company is publicly traded and is an excellent way to grow your...
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... Brigham and Daves gives three reasons why a company would want its IPO price undervalued. The first reason is that “the company wants to create excitement, and a price run up on the first day does that.”(Brigham and Daves pg 637). Two other reasons for a low IPO price are that “only a small percentage of a company’s stock is generally offered to the public so current stockholders give away less due to under pricing than appears at first glance and IPO companies generally plan to have further offerings in the future and the best way to ensure future success is to have a successful IPO, which under pricing guarantees.”(Brigham and Daves pg 637) Brigham and Daves makes an excellent point about low long term performance of IPO stocks. In general, “the offering price appears to be too low, but the first-day run up in generally too high.”(Brigham and Daves pg 637)
The airline industry not only transports passengers across the country and world but it also moves cargo from location to location. The largest segment for the airlines is general commercial passengers and business travelers. In 2004, there were 15 major airlines with 12 of those being mainly passenger carriers, the remaining three being cargo carriers. In addition to the large airlines (Delta, United, American, Southwest, Northwest), there are numerous low-cost regional carriers that have tapped into the larger carriers’ customer base. These smaller companies generally fly from smaller airports and serve a smaller amount of destination cities. Calling them a no-frills air carrier would not be far from the truth. Their goal is to move customers f...
The Airline Industry is a fascinating market. It has been one of the few industries to reach astounding milestones. For example, over 200 airlines have gone out of business since deregulation occurred in 1978. Currently, more than 50% of the airlines in the industry are operating under Chapter 11 regulations. Since 9/11, four of the six large carriers have filed for and are currently under bankruptcy court protection. Since 9/11 the industry has lost over $30 billion dollars, and this loss continues to increase. Despite the fact that the airline industry is in a state of despair, JetBlue has become the golden example, a glimpse of what the industry could be.
Spirit addresses “price” by attempting to get the lowest possible fair for their potential customers. They have instituted their “unbundling” strategy that essentially removes all the conveniences that other airlines afford. Fees for checked bags, fees for flight changes, and no complementary in-flight beverages are just a few of the cost-trimming techniques employed. This strategy allows Spirit to come up with impossibly low fares. It also conforms to customers who just want to get from point A to point B without paying extra for services they don’t use. This strategy, coupled with an in-your-face “promotion” ploy, has made Spirit Airlines “the most profitable airline in the U.S.” (Nicas, 2012).
JetBlue's mission is "to bring humanity back to air travel". Its low-cost strategy is second-to-none, not even to Southwest. Utilizing Southwest as a model and benchmark early in Neeleman's career in the industry, he's managed to copy the Southwest model and expand upon it with his ability to find more innovative ways to cut costs along the organization's value-chain, while utilizing technology to increase productivity and further add to operational efficiencies. JetBlue's value chain demonstrates its ability to successfully compete in several key areas relative to the bases of competition within the industry and creates processes that focus on reducing costs, for the specific purpose of continuously creating value for its customers, i.e. fare pricing, customer service, routes served, flight schedules, types of aircraft, safety record and reputation, in-flight entertainment systems and frequent flyer programs.
In the airline industry, Southwest Airlines is considered a true innovator. By shaking up the rules of flying and improving upon inefficient industry norms, Southwest has quickly grown by leaps and bounds. From the very start, Southwest Airlines' goals were to make a profit, achieve job security for every employee, and make flying affordable for more people (Southwest,2007). Southwest has not strayed from these goals. It does not buy huge aircrafts, fly international routes or try to go head to head with the major carriers; and thanks to a great planning, Southwest airlines has become the most successful airline company in the U.S., if not the world.
Airline and travel industry profitability has been strapped by a series of events starting with a recession in business travel after the dotcom bust, followed by 9/11, the SARS epidemic, the Iraq wars, rising aviation turbine fuel prices, and the challenge from low-cost carriers. (Narayan Pandit, 2005) The fallout from rising fuel prices has been so extreme that any efficiency gains that airlines attempted to make could not make up for structural problems where labor costs remained high and low cost competition had continued to drive down yields or average fares at leading hub airports. In the last decade, US airlines alone had a yearly average of net losses of $9.1 billion (Coombs, 2011).
If the short haul passenger was the backbone of Southwest Airlines success, then their 737s were the lifelines that supported it. By choosing the 737 as the airplane for all of Southwest's flights, the company saved time and resources in training its employees. The crew could be easily substituted for one another due to the extensive training on the 737. Low costs and, therefore, low fares are an enormous competitive advantage, when combined with their high-quality and loyal workforce. A very unique culture was found at Southwest Airlines among all of its employees.
Does Jet Blue have a Business-Level Strategy? What do you consider it to be and why?
The mission of Southwest Airlines is a dedication to the highest quality of service delivered with warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and company spirit (Mission…, 2007). The company also provides opportunities for learning and personal growth to each employee. Creativity and innovation is very important and highly encouraged, for the purposes of improving effectiveness. Employees are to be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that the employees are expected to share with the customer. Southwest Airlines was initially created to be a low-cost alternative to high price of intra-Texas air carriers (Freiberg, 1996). Southwest’s fares were originally supposed to compete with car and bus transportation. It was a little airline, and it would withstand the test of time. As a discount, no-frills airline, it would provide stiff competition for larger airlines. Their strategy was to operate at low cost, offering no food, no movies, no first class, and no reserved seats. They created their own market and provided increased turnaround times at the gate, by avoiding hub-and-spoke airports and opting for short-haul, direct flights. Through this market approach, Southwest has a majority of market share in the markets they serve.
Since its first grand opening in 1971, Southwest Airlines has shown steady growth, and now carries more passengers than any other low-cost carrier in the world (Wharton, 2010). To expand the business operations, Southwest Airlines took over AirTran in 2010 as a strategy to gain more market share for the Southeast region and international flights. However, the acquisition of AirTran brought upcoming challenges both internally and externally for Southwest Airlines. In this case analysis, the objectives are to focus on the change process post the merger with AirTran, and to evaluate alternatives to address the impacts of the merger. II.
In April 1992, American Airlines launched "Value Pricing" -- a radical simplification of the complex pricing structure that had evolved over more than a decade following deregulation of the U.S. domestic airline industry. American expected that the new pricing structure would benefit consumers and restore profitability to both American and the industry as a whole. The critical issue raised is: Would American's bold initiative work?
Accounting is the pillar of every company to measure its growth, loss, revenue , capital, its really specify the real terms in foam of figures and sometimes in tables, in accounting there are certain rules are obtained to make more accuracy while playing with figures.
In a dysfunctional time for the airline industry, most airlines, especially major carriers, are adapting the concept of "doing less with more." One low-cost carrier, JetBlue, is changing the domestic aviation landscape in this regard and is defying the odds. Here is a company that has examined each marketing mix elements carefully, has adapted them to its customer’s needs, and is succeeding because of this approach.
The first initiative that they were able to gain in competitive advantage was the reduction of costs. They have been able to use an online system where consumers can reserve tickets avoiding which avoids using travel agents. Having this systems reduces costs for the company as well because they do not have to hire nearly as many as employees. Along with buying tickets, JetBlue has been able to use other systems to reduce costs which helps them with the maintenance of their planes and organizing information that involves every aspect of their business ranging from their planes to their employees and consumers. The second initiative that JetBlue uses is the creating of new services. By creating their new online services and systems they are able to gain competitive advantage because it allows easier and less expensive accessibility to their services. Not only have they created new services but they are able to differentiate these services from their competitors because of the easiness and quality of the services that they do provide. They not only focus on making their services the best but also the highest level of customer service that they can offer which other airlines struggle to do. Other competitors have realized that JetBlue is beating them in many aspects in the business that they have needed to adjust what they are doing to catch up. Even with the jumps in technology use with the other companies, JetBlue has still been able to enhance their services to continue to gain competitive
The target market of JetBlue airlines is customers who along with low cost seek services. The services provided by JetBlue included in-flight entertainment, TV on every seat, satellite radio, extra leg room, free unlimited snacks, and leather seats. The target market of JetBlue is also the leisure traveler, the low cost ticket seeking traveler, and the cost conscious business traveler. JetBlue has actually, posed a threat to the other low cost airlines like the Southwest Airlines.