The dynamics of business contexts influence the way firms act in their industry. These changes can have effects in several areas within a company. Entrepreneurship and Innovation are two areas that are affected when a change in firm’s environment occurs, like Schumpeter, Shane and Drucker point. Changes in the deregulatory framework are a specific type of change that can occur. According to Entrepreneurship theories, the removal of regulatory barriers creates opportunities to different reallocation of resources that can lead to changes in market equilibrium. This study addresses this relation between deregulation and entrepreneurship-innovation in the European airline industry. With the removal of regulatory barriers, companies like SAS and Ryanair, saw opportunities to do something new and at the same time had to adapt to these “doing something new” behavior of other companies. Entrepreneurship and innovation were the answer to theses changes and the weapon to fight answers to others with this change. Considering this, our statement problem is the following: How did the deregulation of air transportation in Europe foster entrepreneurial behavior and innovation in the European airline industry over the last twenty years? The case of SAS and Ryanair. Our goal is to describe the process of deregulation and how firms reacted to it and to give explanations behind the relation deregulation-entrepreneurship, identifying the direct and indirect influence of deregulation in the studied companies. Furthermore, based on this investigation, we will trace possible ways on how future deregulation in Europe can foster further entrepreneurial behavior and innovation. This thesis was conducted with a positivism scientific ideal and a deductive approach. We used a qualitative method to collect empirical data that could match with the theories we had chosen beforehand. We conducted three interviews with people inside the industry – from airlines (SAS Braathens and SAS) and from airports (LFV). The first two were used as main sources to SAS case study and the third to have a perspective of airline industry. Since we could not get any interview with Ryanair, Ryanair story book was used as main source for this case study. Our theoretical framework consists of four different broad areas that are interrelated to each other. These areas and the respective theories integrated in them are: institutions and regulation, changes in context and strategic position. Our study shows that EU deregulation altered the five competitive forces in European airline industry and in turn this fostered entrepreneurship and innovation, as a reaction of firms to adapt to the change in their context. The reaction of Ryanair and SAS through entrepreneurial and innovative behaviour was different due to the differences in their business model. We argue that the removal of barriers to new entrants and the increased rivalry between firms were the main forces that fostered entrepreneurship and innovation. We predict that if further EU deregulation comes (as it is the trend) this will generate more opportunities to entrepreneurship and innovation like it generated in the past.

Flyget är ett viktigt transportmedel i vårt utvecklade samhälle och det används i många olika sammanhang, men de vanligaste sammanhangen som man kanske först kommer att tänka på är flyget som transportmedel för privatresenärer eller affärsresenärer. Globaliseringen har resulterat i att människor har fått ett ökat behov av att resa och detta har medfört att flygbranschen spelar en större roll idag än tidigare. Den ökade efterfrågan på antalet flygresor i kombination med avregleringen av flygmarknaden har på ett naturligt sätt medfört att antalet flygbolag har ökat och givetvis konkurrensen med dem. Konkurrensen har drivit ner priset på flygbiljetterna och lågprisflygbolagen har varit de stora vinnarna i den här duellen. De har redan från början insett resenärernas behov av att kunna resa billigt och ta sig snabbt och enkelt dit de vill. De satsade på detta koncept och kunde genomföra det i och med att de såg till att kostnadseffektivisera i varje led. Detta visade sig vara väldigt framgångsrikt och de mer traditionella flygbolagen har mer eller mindre blivit tvungna att haka på konceptet med billiga flygbiljetter i någon form, för att bibehålla sin konkurrenskraft på marknaden. Lågprisflyget förväntas ta marknadsandelar och vara framgångsrikt även i framtiden. Syftet med denna uppsats har varit att undersöka hur flygbranschen ser ut idag. Vilka tendenser som är speciellt framträdande, vilken riktning flygbranschen är på väg åt och vad man använder sig av för strategier för att erbjuda kunderna mervärde. Vi har kallat detta för en branschanalys, och i och med att vi inte kunnat bearbeta varje flygbolag i hela branschen, har vi låtit fem flygbolag få karaktärisera branschen i stort. De flygbolag som vi valt att studera närmare är: Malmö Aviation, SAS, Ryan air, Fly Me och Sterling. Vi har utfört denna undersökning genom en kvalitativ fallstudie. Detta har vi gjort därför att vi velat undersöka de olika bolagen på ett djupgående och holistiskt sätt. Informationen som vi använt oss av har vi fått genom dagsfärska tidningsartiklar, flygbolagens olika hemsidor och kanske framförallt genom intervjuer från flygbolagens olika representanter och en intervju från luftfartsverket. I den här uppsatsen kommer vi också att behandla framtida möjligheter för flygbranschen, så som exempelvis allianssammanslutningar och andra samarbetsformer. Miljöfrågorna har kommit att diskuteras mer och mer under senare tid och dessa aspekter har vi också tagit hänsyn till i uppsatsen. En del av syftet med uppsatsen har dessutom varit att undersöka vad de olika bolagen gör för att tillfredställa kunder och därmed hålla kvar sin konkurrenskraft på marknaden.

Syftet är att skapa en förståelse för strategiska beteenden hos flygbolag i Europa, under en tid som präglas utav finansiell oro, detta då människor i allt högre grad använder sig utav flyg som transportmedel. Vid utförandet av denna uppsats har en kvalitativ forskningsmetod använts samtidigt som den präglats av en induktiv ansats, då utgångspunkten är empirin för att sedan tillämpa passande teorier på det empiriska materialet. Insamlandet av det empiriska materialet har genomförts med hjälp av en tvärsnittsstudie utav sex olika flygbolag, vi har då valt att enbart använda oss av sekundära källor, då vi anser att detta är passande för denna uppsats. När valet av flygbolag gjordes var kravet att bolagen skulle finnas inom Europa och bedriva flygtrafik till och från Sverige.

<p>Background: The airline industry is unique and fascinating. It was protected through government controls until the early 1980s. However, due to deregulation policy the industry opened to free competition. As a result, collaborations and alliances were formed and low budget airlines were able to enter the market. </p><p>Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to present the current stage of the European airline industry by investigating the strategies of Ryanair and SAS with the help of strategic management tools. </p><p>Procedure: Two companies were chosen, Ryanair as a low budget airline and SAS as a mature airline. The investigation was based on secondary data found in financial -, annual -, business - and company reports as well as in independent analyst reports and on the Internet. </p><p>Results: Ryanair’s and SAS’ strategies differ a lot. While Ryanair is focusing on lowest costs it is able to offer low fare tickets but also puts effort into increasing service. On the other hand, SAS’ complicated situation in the weak industry leads to many strategic adjustments. Its diverse choice of prices and services underlines its current instability. Concerning the European airline industry, moves toward consolidation are observable. The industry is reshaped</p>

<p>Syftet är att skapa en förståelse för strategiska beteenden hos flygbolag i Europa, under en tid som präglas utav finansiell oro, detta då människor i allt högre grad använder sig utav flyg som transportmedel. Vid utförandet av denna uppsats har en kvalitativ forskningsmetod använts samtidigt som den präglats av en induktiv ansats, då utgångspunkten är empirin för att sedan tillämpa passande teorier på det empiriska materialet. Insamlandet av det empiriska materialet har genomförts med hjälp av en tvärsnittsstudie utav sex olika flygbolag, vi har då valt att enbart använda oss av sekundära källor, då vi anser att detta är passande för denna uppsats. När valet av flygbolag gjordes var kravet att bolagen skulle finnas inom Europa och bedriva flygtrafik till och från Sverige.</p><p><strong> </strong></p>

abstract: In 2004 the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia joined the European Union (EU) as part of the EU's greatest enlargement to date. These countries were followed by Bulgaria and Romania in 2007. One benefit of joining the EU was the freedom for residents in the new EU member states to migrate to western European nations, notably the United Kingdom (UK). A result of this new freedom was an increased need for air travel. The intersection of the expansion of the EU with the introduction of low-cost airline service was the topic addressed in this study. Yearly traffic statistics obtained from the UK Civil Aviation Authority were used to formulate a trend line of passenger volume growth from 1990 to 2003. Through a time series regression analysis, a confidence interval was calculated that established that, beginning with the year 2004, passenger volumes exceeded the probable margin of error, despite flat population growth. Low-cost carriers responded to these market conditions through the introduction of new flights across the region. These carriers modeled themselves after Southwest Airlines, a strategy that appeared to be more effective at meeting the needs of the post-accession travel boom. The result was a dramatic rise in both passenger volumes and low-cost airline routes in an east-west direction across the continent. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S.Tech Technology 2012

The principal aim of this thesis is to identify and analyse inovative approaches and procedures of low-cost airlines that brought air transport to a broader mass of customers. This work also explores marketing specifics of the airline industry, discusses ticket pricing and ticket distribution issues, advertising opportunities, quality and product range issues. Later, it deals with enviromental challenges facing aviation. The final section formulates recommendations that will enable further revenue increases for low-cost carriers.

The Occurrence of Dark Patterns in the Airline Industry is a thesis in Information Design with a focus on Interaction Design. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how dark patterns in airline ticket bookings affect the user experience of inexperienced users. Dark patterns are design tricks that manipulate users into making decisions that benefit the company behind them. Although the use of dark patterns may seem like a good way to increase sales, they can harm the company's reputation in the long run. Many companies have been fined large sums of money, and more are likely to follow as rules and regulations regarding the use of dark patterns become more common. This thesis examines how users perceive and react to the occurrence of dark patterns in the booking process of airline tickets. It does this by using methods such as interviews and scenarios. The findings serve as the basis for a design proposal to redesign two different booking processes where dark patterns occur less frequently. This proposal investigates the relationship between the occurrence of dark patterns and the user experience.

Reporting of sustainability has gained an increasing importance over the past years and companies have begun to take greater responsibility for society. One major reason why sustainability has been recognized is because of the increased climate change in the world. The airline industry, which is seen as an important part of today's tourism, have had a major impact on the social, economic and natural surroundings, which is an contributing factor to today's climate change and air pollution. Airlines can be divided into two categories, low-cost airlines and traditional airlines. These two airlines separates each other by their business ideas and strategies, where low-cost airlines target price-sensitive travelers while traditional airlines are known to have a larger price advantage over the low-cost airlines. Different strategies can lead to separation of the sustainability reports, as companies work in different ways, which has consequences for how they report their sustainability. This is a problem as companies take different social responsibilities. The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze how sustainability reporting differs between airlines that use different business strategies, by comparing two low-cost airlines with two traditional airlines. The authors first examined already existing theory that has been collected and compared to the companies' sustainability reports. The conclusions of this study have shown big differences between low-cost airlines and traditional airlines reporting of sustainability. An important reason for this is based on the airlines' strategies, where the low-cost airlines apply a low-cost strategy and try to gain competitive advantages by having the industry's lowest costs, while the traditional airlines have a strategy to make the flight as comfortable as possible for the travelers, where high quality and service is important priorities for creating customer satisfaction. The different strategies between the airlines mean that they prioritize different things, which are reflected in their sustainability reports. All airlines have shown clear initiatives to achieve a more sustainable world, but in this study, the traditional airlines have always done a little extra in all the three perspectives.

<p>Sammanfattning</p><p>Bakgrund</p><p>Råoljor utgör den råvarumässiga grunden för cirka 40 % av den kommersiella energi- marknaden i världen. Därför oljemarknaden har en betydande ekonomisk och politisk roll i världen och betraktas priset på råolja idag som en viktig faktor för utveckling av världsekonomin.</p><p>På senare tid har alla oroligheter i Mellanöstern, bland annat kriget i Irak och problematiken kring Irans kärnkraftverksamheter samt en ovanligt aktiv inledning på orkansäsongen i sydöstra Förenta staterna under 2005 drivit upp ett redan högt råoljepris.</p><p>Enligt insatta aktörer på marknaden är flygbranschen en av de beroende branscherna till oljesektorn. Den är beroende av oljeproduktion, oljepris och oljetillgänglighet. Det påstås att oljeprishöjningen kan leda till högre kostnadsposter och följaktligen negativ inverkan på flygbolagens resultat. En ansenlig del av flygbranschens kostnader utgörs av bränslekostnader och dessa uppgår för närvarande till mellan 10 och 25% för de flesta flygbolag. Det gör att varje prisförändring i oljebranschen kan påverka flygbranschens lönsamhet.</p><p>Att se till vilken grad dessa påståenden motsvarar det verkliga förhållandet när det gäller oljepriset och dess påverkan på flygbolagen, kommer att undersökas i denna uppsats.</p><p>Syfte</p><p>Syftet är att undersöka och analysera hur prisförändringar i oljebranschen påverkar Scandinavian Airlines SAS och Ryanairs resultat.</p><p>Metod</p><p>Undersökningen kommer att göras i form av en fallstudie och omfattar ovannämnda två flygbolag å ena sidan och oljepriset å den andra. Undersökningen genomförs med olika metoder såsom analys av texter och intervjuer.</p><p>Resultat</p><p>Enligt undersökningen är korrelationen mellan oljesektorn och flygbranschen negativ när det gäller bolagens bränslekostnader, men inte beträffande bolagens resultat. Det vill säga: när oljepriset stiger, påverkas flygbolagen SAS och Ryanair i form av ökade bränslekostnads- poster. Men genom effektivisering, det slutliga resultatet för både bolagen är positivt.</p> / <p>Background</p><p>Crude oil constitutes 40% of basic raw material of commercial energy market in the world. Therefore the oil market has a meaningful economical and political role in the world. This makes the price on the oil market to become an important factor for the development of the world's economy.</p><p>Lately the political instability in the Middle East, especially the war in Iraq, the complexes of the problems in Iran's nuclear weapon program and the unusual active beginning of the hurricane season in the south-eastern areas of the United States of America in 2005 has driven up already high prices of the raw oil to even higher levels.</p><p>According to market analysers the flight industry is one of those industries that depend on the oil section. It is addicted to the oil production, prices of oil and oil availability. According to some people the increase of oil prices can bring up high expense and therefore a negative influences on the results of the flight companies. One considerable expense of the flight industries is fuel expenditure. At the moment the cost for fuel expenditure for many flight companies is between 10 and 25%. These create any price exchange of oil industry to affect the profitability of the flight industry.</p><p>The statement that have been mentioned above and how those are connected to the reality when it comes to oil prices and its effectiveness on the flight companies will be the basic of this study.</p><p>Purpose</p><p>The purpose of this study is to study and analyse price exchanges in the raw oil industry affects Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) and Ryanair's results.</p><p>Method</p><p>This study will conduct with a case study and will include the two above named flight companies. The study will be carrying out with different methods as analyse of text and interviews.</p><p>Results</p><p>The result of these study saws that the relation between the oil section and flight industry is negative when it comes to flight companies fuel cost, but the result does not saw any negative result on flight companies results. This means that any increase of oil prices will affect SAS and Ryanair fuel expenditures but the final result for these two flight companies through efficiency is positive.</p>