Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

Hi Andy,

First of all thanks for the way you have asked your question. We get a lot of people just posting there assignments and not doing any work, expecting us to do it for them.

Any way have you searched the past questions? here is the link to the page:

https://www.marketingprofs.com/ea/qst_search.asp (bookmark this)

Anyway i did a quick search of the past questions and found 33 questions relating to airlines. You may find something useful in here:

https://www.marketingprofs.com/ea/qst_searchResults.asp?action=go&qstCatego...

Have a nice day

Carl Crawford

Welcome, daGuvna (nice handle)

Where do these lecturers come up with these insane assignments?

Have you got a copy of "Flying Off-Course - International Airline Economics" by Riga Doganis? Publisher is Routledge, London & New York. ISBN 0-415-08439-3. I got mine via Amazon but in 1998, not sure if still available.

Doesn't specifically cover any strategic advantages directly attributable to IT but does have a huge number of refs to JAL.

In terms of JAL's business strategy, try downloading their past annual reports. I hope they're available in English!

Information systems support all airlines the same ways, and I doubt JAL has or had any specific advantages over that period that others did not lead first or copy fast.

You could also approach JAL's Ops manager at the nearest airport to you that they serve, and ask for their views on how they use Info Systems for advantage. Remember to attribute any good comments and include in your report...

Airlines are a particular interest of mine and I would be pleased to see how this project turns out for you. If you need a hand proof reading or with input once you get going I would be happy to help, contact via my profile details (click name above).

Of more interest would be not what they have done, but what you think they COULD have done, or still could do, to gain advantage through use of IS...

One key area might be for pre-departure security vetting to speed aircraft loading. e.g. Profiling, clearing well-known customers faster, etc. Linking frequent flyers of lengthy memberships to fast clearances...

Good Luck.

ChrisB

da.Guvna

First, focusing on the IS advantage angle, I would look at SWOT, PEST (for a range of reasons, e.g. new technologies such as in-flight e-mail and internet, pay per view/on demand video for IFE systems, terrorism, security, etc), Porter, which will likely prove any advantage is short-term, Value Chain Analysis with particular focus on the various channels to market for ticket sales opened up by new technology, Product Mix Matrices with a focus on route planning and load management (fares varying dependent upon demand), all of which require Info Sys technology to function.

The standard value chain needs to be customised to fit the channel analysis for each airline you wish to compare. I would re-read all that 1950-2000 material on JAL that you were given to pick the things they did best and see if you can establish whether competitors did similar before or after (and any time interval lead/lag).

When you close the question off, you just check any answer you want to give points to. You can check all, some, or just one. In fact I think you can check none, too, but that might cause concerned questions in the house!

ChrisB

daGuvna

1. Not a pain in the slightest. It takes guts to ask for help, but getting the opinions of others is a great way to understand more about your challenges and how to respond to them.

2. It's a joy to get a two-way conversation happening as most students just ask you to do their homework and then when you tell them to do some thinking they just abandon the thread with no further comments. Often they don't even close the question!

3. For quick info on the Value Chain, go here www.quickmba.com/strategy/value-chain which is a terrific resource btw... Now, what should you put in it???

I would tend to look at the whole business, i.e. include support activities.

Inbound logistics might include the things you suggested plus... Crew Rosters and Logs, License Renewals, Training, Sim Checks, CRM, Fuel Hedging and Tankering Decision support (tankering is when you carry enough for the return trip, used when fuel costs more at destination, but it's no good on long trips), Maintenance schedule monitoring, Catering, Food/Bev Purchasing, Provisioning, Stationery and other consumables, pallets and containers... Are you looking at Cargo/Freight as well as the passenger transportation aspects, too?

Operations Route and Flight Planning including automated plan filing and uploading to aircraft, Crew & Passenger Manifests, interface to Catering for flight provisioning, Ramp timetables and ground crew planning, contingency planning, booking, ticketing, boarding passes, seat allocation, frequent flyer mileage tracking, oh, and load management is really called Yield Management, sorry about that, and includes trend reporting of statistics like ASMs, RPMs, (ASKs and RPKs for metric people) .

Outbound Logistics is kind of a hard one to know what to do with for an airline... I mean, it's supposed to cover aspects associated with shipping out of the stuff you just made or added value to... What does and airline ship out exactly? I think you can certainly incorporate deliveries of freight, plus baggage delivery to conveyor belts (look for the IT systems implications there, but they most likely belong to the airport, not the airline). You may get some help here https://www.travelglobe.biz/airlines/business_process/airlines_bpo.html or https://www.iata.org/whatwedo/user_charges/rebalancing_the_industry_value_c... ... I'm not sure horizontal integration with alternate transport modes fits here, it's more an operations thing, and does it have any Information Systems implications anyway?

Marketing and Sales, I think you've nailed it, but include frequent flyer schemes and e-Communications with FFs and other booked pax, also SMS updates when flight times change, if applicable to JAL. Certainly Qantas is doing that here in Australia.

Sounds like you're cooking with gas... Or Jet A1... If you want to run your document past me, feel free (contact offline via my profile).

Good luck.

Chris

Andy

I have some ideas but have to attend a meeting which will run a few hours. I'll get back to you in 24 hours or so.

Remember the bricks and mortar travel agents are being disintermediated by the direct via internet airline-traveller channel, as well as via on-line aggregation agencies.

Rivals: Other airlines - remember the reciprocal treaties between nations mean it is difficult for new carriers to get landing rights in Japan, so generally there are only a limited number of carriers operating directly between any Japanese city and a foreign city.

Some carriers like SIA may have negotiated special rights for NRT-LAX but these may be limited to carrying onward only pax who flew from SIN to NRT. And negotiating those agreements takes years, so New Entrants find it tough.

Rivals generally don't get into price wars on profitable sectors where they are running high load factors (70%+) because they are capacity limited. Can't just add extra flights to cope with demand if it increases. Whole new subject.

Got to fly, pardon the pun, will reply in more length soon.

Regards

Chris