The airline product is a standardized product and positioning in today’s highly competitive and constantly changing environment is one of the most important elements in an airline’s marketing strategy. Airlines are constantly trying to apply and implement various marketing positioning strategies in order to achieve success and growth. The overall purpose of this study was to examine the positioning strategies of the four selected Middle Eastern airlines in the South African business and leisure travel environment, based on airline performance in terms of service quality attributes that are perceived as important by passengers. The results of the study will contribute towards the air transport literature by confirming the validity of grouping a large number of service quality attributes and adding value to the role players’ understanding of their particular airlines’ influence and importance of service quality for positioning. The study also addresses the need for reliable information on attributes of service quality that are perceived by South African business and leisure passenger as crucial factors impacting on the selection of their airline. A literature review as well as empirical research was conducted to achieve the purpose of this study: the former provided a demarcation of the broad concepts of service quality and positioning. These concepts were specifically linked to the airline industry, providing a clear indication of the positioning strategies used by the selected airlines as reflected through the media and the airlines’ websites. The literature review also helped to identify the service quality attributes that were important to passengers of different airlines. These attributes were used to determine the positioning of the selected airlines as perceived by their passengers. The positioning of airlines was graphically represented using 3D Centroid plots. The data was analyzed using factor analysis, analysis of variance and multivariate analysis of variance. Factor analysis was used to group identified attributes of service quality important to passengers of selected Middle Eastern airlines. Analysis of variance was used to test the relationships between variables, while multivariate analysis of variance was used to test the effect of variables on each other. Databases were not available for this study: therefore non-probability sampling methods, namely convenience and quota sampling, were used. A limitation of the study within which the data analysis occurred is that the data collected was not normally distributed. The data had to be transformed and then tested for normality. The transformed data was normally distributed . The results of the research suggest that passengers are mostly concerned with the responsiveness of the airline and reliability of service, followed by consistency in the quality of service, and are less concerned about the added efforts of the airline as its main positioning component. The findings suggest the direction to be taken for the purpose of service improvement. Airlines should focus more on security measures and well-trained employees, as this will give passengers more confidence. Being responsive and prompt and willing to help, with a courteous attitude, should be a priority objective for employees as part of the service culture. The findings also suggest that more resources should be invested in customization, such as loyalty and frequent flyer programmes. The recommendations of this study could be used to improve the current process of service delivery. / Dissertation (MCom(Tourism Management))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Tourism Management / MCom / Unrestricted

This dissertation describes a model that predicts airline flight network, frequency and fleet changes in response to policy measures that aim to reduce the environmental impact of aviation. Such airline operational responses to policy measures are not considered by existing integrated aviation-environment modelling tools. By not modelling these effects the capability of the air transport system to adjust under changing conditions is neglected, resulting in the forecasting of potentially misleading system and local responses to constraints. The model developed follows the overriding principle of airline strategic decision making, i.e., airline profit maximisation within a competitive environment. It consists of several components describing different aspects of the air transport system, including passenger demand forecasting, flight delay modelling, estimation of airline costs and airfares, and network optimisation. These components are integrated into a framework that allows the relationships between fares, passenger demand, infrastructure capacity constraints, flight delays, flight frequencies, and the flight network to be simulated. Airline competition is modeled by simulating a strategic game between airlines competing for market share, each of which maximizes its own profit. The model is validated by reproducing historical passenger flows and flight frequencies for a network of 22 airports serving 14 of the largest cities in the United States, using 2005 population, per capita income and airport capacities as inputs. The estimated passenger flows and flight frequencies compare well to observed data for the same network (the R2 value comparing flight segment frequencies is 0.62). After validation, the model is applied to simulate traffic growth and carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions within the same network from 2005 to 2030 under a series of scenarios. These scenarios investigate airline responses to (i) airport capacity constraints, (ii) regional increases in costs in the form of landing fees, and (iii) major reductions in aircraft fuel burn, as would be achieved through the introduction of radically new technology such as a blended wing body aircraft or advanced open rotor engines. The simulation results indicate that, while airport capacity constraints may have significant system-wide effects, they are the result of local airport effects which are much greater. In particular, airport capacity constraints can have a significant impact on flight delays, passenger demand, aircraft operations, and emissions, especially at congested hub airports. If capacity is available at other airports, capacity constraints may also induce changes in the flight network, including changes in the distribution of connecting traffic between hubs and the distribution of true origin-ultimate destination traffic between airports in multi-airport systems. Airport capacity constraints are less likely to induce any significant increase in the size of aircraft operated, however, because of frequency competition effects, which maintain high flight frequencies despite reductions in demand in response to increased flight delays. The simulation results also indicate that, if sufficiently large, regional increases in landing fees may induce significant reductions in aircraft operations by increasing average aircraft size and inducing a shift in connecting traffic away from the region. The simulation results also indicate that the introduction of radically new technology that reduces aircraft fuel burn may have only limited impact on reducing system CO2 emissions, and only in the case where the new technology can be taken up by the majority of the fleet. The reason for this is that the reduced operating costs of the new technology may result in an increase in frequency competition and thus aircraft operations. In conclusion, the modelling of airline operational responses to environmental constraints is important when studying both the system and local effects of environmental policy measures, because it captures the capability of the air transport system to adjust under changing conditions.

In the first chapter is defined the fundamental concept of low cost airlines. Second and third section is dedicaded to history, creation and sequential developement of theese carriers and as well their characteristics. Following part is attended to airline traffic and its importance for tourism. In the last most extensive section, is analysed the influence of airline industry on tousim in the Czech Republic, at firts in general view of low cost carriers and tourism and further is this influence searched and analysed through three concrete airlines and four chosen regions.

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.

In the past two decades, a need in forming strategic alliance has become increasingly important, especially for small companies. Likewise, airline alliances act as a vehicle for small carriers to obtain their superior position or to survive competition in a competitive international market where they do not appear to be a dominant player. In strategic alliances, the greater integration conveys greater benefits. However, the level of failure and success are varied among alliance members. This thesis was underpinned by the aim to conduct an in-depth study under the concept of organisational culture to reveal the key issues and barriers that appear to distort the ability of an organisation to foster success as well as to boost up its ability to obtain the benefits from the alliances to the maximum level.The empirical investigation employed a qualitative approach as a mechanism, driving this thesis through the process of research design, data collection, and data analysis. Using a single case study as a main technique, the case company of this thesis is Thai Airways. Data was collected through in-depth and semi-structured interviews. Data was analysed using thematic grouping and organised through NVIvo software.This thesis displayed the findings into two main themes. The first theme is associated with the activity to diagnose organisational culture, whereas the Competing Values Framework (CVF) was adopted as an initial framework. The main objectives are to develop a cultural profile for Thai Airways and to identify the key issues and barriers that distort the ability of Thai Airways to foster success. The key finding derived from this theme offered the identified problems and barriers derived from organisational culture. Using the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) method, the second theme is associated with the activity to identify the critical success factors for Thai Airways, deriving as a set of CSFs proposed to help enhance the ability of Thai Airways to obtain big firm's benefits. The outcome of this thesis could be considered as a new reference for the areas of organisational studies and the success of airlines, where the literature appears to be limited. More importantly, this thesis believed that the research journey offered an empirical experience reflecting a piece of organisational culture study in a non-Western context.

This thesis focuses on the distribution and comparison of different distribution channels, which are used in aviation. Theoretical knowledge is applied to the example of two major European airlines, KLM and Air France, which together form a group of Air France-KLM. The main objective is to compare the various distribution channels and to confirm or to refute the thesis that the vast majority of airline bookings is realized through the travel agencies. The first part focuses on the history of aviation, international organizations active in the aviation and on the actual distribution. Another section is devoted to airlines KLM and Air France. The last part deals with the differences between the various distribution channels and compares them based on specific data.

The diploma work deals with the trends in the aviation traffic and the development of main competitors in airlines industry. The first part is focused on the detailed description, evoluation and analysis of the Czech Airlines CSA and its integration into one of the global alliance SkyTeam. It also includes the present status and the future development of this regional carrier compared with big carriers affecting the global air industry. The work is drawn primarily from available information on airline alliances, which are compared in selected aspects of a chosen criterion and show their influence on the national carrier CSA. Comparison is based on the data from last two years.

Airline disruption management traditionally seeks to address three problem dimensions – aircraft scheduling, crew scheduling, and passenger scheduling – in that order. However, current efforts have, at most, only addressed the first two con-currently and do not account for the propagative effects that uncertain scheduling outcomes in one dimension can have on another. Uncertainties in scheduling out-comes originate from random disruption events (like inclement weather and aircraft malfunction), the order in which they occur, and how they are resolved. As such, these uncertainties propagate through all problem dimensions of airline disruption management on day of operation. Existing approaches for airline operations recovery include human specialists who decide on the necessary corrective actions to airline schedule disruptions on the day of operation. However, human specialists are limited in their ability to process copious amounts of information, necessary to make robust decisions that simultaneously address all three problem dimensions in operations recovery. Therefore, there is a need to augment the decision-making capabilities of a human specialist with quantitative and qualitative tools that can rationalize complex interactions amongst the three dimensions in airline operations recovery, and provide objective insights to the specialists in the Airline Operations Control Center (AOCC).To this effect, this dissertation provides a discussion of an agnostic and systematic paradigm for enabling simultaneously-integrated recovery of all problem dimensions in airline disruption management, through an intelligent multi-agent system that employs principles from artificial intelligence and distributed ledger technology.

Diplomová práce se zaměřuje na marketingovou strategii Turkish Airlines, který je nejlepší evropský letecký dopravce s jeho hlavní základnou v Istanbulu na letišti Atatürk. Práce taktéž zahrnuje rozbor leteckého průmyslu a navrhuje marketingový přístup pro rozvoj povědomí a zvýšení prodeje společnosti Turkish Airlines. Diplomová práce se skládá ze tří částí teoretické, praktické a návrhové části.

Although the application of segmentation is a topic of central importance in marketing literature and practice, managers tend to rely on intuition and on traditional segmentation techniques based on socio-demographic variables. In the airline industry, it is regarded as common sense to separate between business and economy passengers. However, the simplicity of this segmentation logic no longer matches the ever more complex and heterogeneous choices made by customers. Airline companies relying solely on flight class as the segmentation criterion may not be able to customize their product offerings and marketing policies to an appropriate degree in order to respond to the shifting importance and growing complexity of customer choice drivers, e.g. flexibility and price as a result of liberalization in the airline industry. Thus, there is a need to re-evaluate the traditional market segmentation criterion. By analyzing the stated preference data of more than 5800 airline passengers, we show that segmenting into business and leisure (a) does not sufficiently capture the preference heterogeneity among customers and (b) leads to a misunderstanding of consumer preferences. We apply latent class modeling to our data and propose an alternative segmentation approach: we profile the identified segments along behavioral and socio-demographic variables. We combine our findings with observable consumer characteristics to derive pronounced fencing mechanisms for isolating and addressing customer segments receptive for tailored product packages.