Strategic Study on the Global Airline Industry

4 4 EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT 5 4.1 INDUSTRY ANALYSIS5 4.1.1 4.1.2 4.1.3 4.1.4 4.1.5 4.1.6 4.1.7 Airline industry General Profile 5 Life Cycle 6 Porter's 5 Forces . 17 6 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 17 7 REFERENCES21 3 Introduction "Emirates Airlines goals for the immediate future and long term are, to be the best in every venture it undertakes; to meet its customers' expectations profitably,

1 Abstract
This conducted report discusses a strategic study about the global airline
industry, particularly Emirates Airlines. The first part of the report provides a brief
overview about Emirates Airlines Company followed by a situation analysis that
includes the internal and external analysis. The last section will be concluded
with the current situation along with suggesting major issues that Emirates
Airlines should address.

2 Table of Content
3 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 4
4 EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT ........................................................................ 5
4.1 INDUSTRY ANALYSIS .......................................................................... 5
4.1.1 Airline industry General Profile ........................................................ 5
4.1.2 Life Cycle ........................................................................................ 6
4.1.3 Porter’s 5 Forces ............................................................................. 7
4.1.4 Key Competitors.............................................................................. 9
4.1.5 Key Success Factors .................................................................... 10
4.1.6 PEST Analysis .............................................................................. 12
4.1.7 Summary of External Environment ................................................ 13
5 INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT ....................................................................... 14
5.1 SWOT ANALYSIS ................................................................................ 14
5.2 SUMMARY OF INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT ....................................... 17
6 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION ................................................ 17
7 REFERENCES ............................................................................................ 21

3 Introduction
“Emirates Airlines goals for the immediate future and long term are,
to be the best in every venture it undertakes; to meet its customers'
expectations profitably, to contribute to the success of Dubai Inc.,
and to make the city the new global aviation hub for the 21st
century.”
Emirates Chairman, Sheikh Ahmed Al
Maktoom
In 1985 Emirates Airlines was established by Dubai Government with just two
aircrafts. Today Emirates has 83 aircrafts files to 78 destinations in 55 countries
worldwide. It has a large number of cabin crews from 95 nationalities. It recently
made an aircraft orders worth more than $ 26 billion for 45 Airbus A380, which
makes the company the world’s largest purchaser of Airbus’s super-jumbo.
(About Emirates)
Emirates Airlines recently becomes one of the fastest growing airlines and the
fifth-most-profitable airline in the world. It has been growing by more than 20% a
year since the last 17 years making a profit of $637 million in 2004-05. (BBC
News)
Emirates Airlines is committed to achieve its mission, namely “offering
consistently high-quality value-for-money service and to be the best airline on all
of its routes”. Accordingly, it is known as an innovative and customer-oriented
provider of advanced services, such as offering personal entertainment system in
all classes, 18 TV channels, 22 audio channels and online booking service which
enables customers to book, search for flights and choose seats. (About
Emirates)

Because of that excellence, it gained over 280 international awards, such as the
prestigious CAPA airline of the year award 2005 by the Centre for Asia Pacific
Aviation.
(Internet travel news)
4 External Environment
4.1 Industry Analysis
The aim of the industry analysis is to identify the external environment that
affects the airline industry. The first part gives an idea about the airline industry
profile.
4.1.1 Airline industry General Profile
Airline industry is one of the most competitive and growing industries in the world
as it leads to economic growth, world trade, international investment and tourism.
In the last decade, it has grown strongly by 7% per year for both business and
leisure purposes. (Airline Industry)
Airline industry is considered as one of the fastest expanding sectors of the world
with growth rates 2.4 times above the GDP rates on average. It is also predicted
to grow by an average of 5 % a year from 2000 to 2010 (IATA).
Airline industry is affected by the economical growth, trade and political factors.
As an example of the political factors, the 11th September attacks dropped the
number of passengers, because people were afraid and tend to avoid studying
and visiting countries that have been attacked by terrorism. As an economical
factor, the increase in oil prices destroyed the profitability of the global airline
industry, accordingly it losses around $6 billion in 2005 (IATA).

Due to the unstable political and economical situation, many airlines companies
started to modify their strategies and services to survive and succeed in the
airline industry. For example, many companies invested heavily in the quality of
services they provide by offering, e-booking system, new interactive
entertainment systems, more comfortable seats, low cost carriers and many
technological techniques. All of that was introduced to attract, return customers
and gain a competitive advantage.
As being in such a competitive market, many companies started setting
agreements among each other to reduce costs and share resource which is
called as alliance.
Overall, the airline industry will recover as the number of passengers seems to
be doubled by 2010 to exceed 2.3 billion due to the tourism, trade and economic
development (IATA).Thus, Successful airlines will be those that continue
reducing their costs and improving their services by differentiating from
competitors to secure a strong position in the aviation market.
4.1.2 Life Cycle
The airline industry is in the maturity stage, therefore there is a strong
competition in the market and the sales' rate grows fast and then begins to
stabilize gradually. As the competition is more aggressive in this stage, the
advertising and sales promotion can be obvious. Moreover many competitors
increased their research and development (R&D) budgets to find best services to
gain customers’ attention. (Product Life Cycle, 2005)
Accordingly, many companies started to focus in differentiating their services and
products from their competitors by increasing their customers’ brand loyalty. For
instance many companies starts to concentrate on cutting the operating cost,
thus in this stage the profit margin decreases and the least efficient companies
leaves the market and only well-established companies are the ones that remain.
Accordingly, many companies’ use offensive strategies rather than defensive

strategies through modifying their market, product and marketing mix to survive
and compete during this stage. (New product development)
For example, Kuwait airways implements the strategy of modifying the marketing
mix by launching a low cost carriers in order to increase its customer base and
loyalty and increase sales, which is considered as a competitive advantage
amongst its competitors (Kuwait Airways).
Following section explains the porter’s 5 forces that impact airlines industry.
4.1.3 Porter’s 5 Forces
 Threat of New Entrants
The new entrants cause a threat to the existing company in any industry,
because they might offer better services, products or costs. In the airline industry
the threat is low as the level of entry barriers is high. There are many challenges
that should be considered by the new entrants as follows:
Capital Requirements. Huge budget is required for starting a new airline
company to buy aircrafts and provide services to customers. Ex. Boeing costs
around $ 2 billion. (Ashraf, Emirates Airline)
Brand name & Customer loyalty: Airlines companies have built an excellent
position in the market which helps them to compete against the threats of new
entrants. The experience curve of the existing companies is high according to
their long experiences in the market, Ex. American Airlines. Generally, alliances
between key airlines companies make the entry on the industry hard for any new
airline company.
 Bargaining Power of Suppliers

Suppliers can affect the industry through their abilities to raise prices or reduce
the quality of purchased goods and services. The airline industry has few
suppliers globally, namely Boeing and Airbus. Thus the power of the suppliers is
high, because those limited suppliers have a control on the market due to the
huge demand of their manufactured products.
 Bargaining Power of Buyers
Buyers affect the industry through their abilities to reduce prices, bargain for
higher quality or more services. The power of the buyers in this industry is strong
as there are lots of passengers (1.8 billion yearly), the switching costs are low
and passengers have many choices in the market (ITAT).
The new technology of e-ticketing gives people the chance and flexibility to
search for many airlines companies offering better or cheaper costs and
services. Furthermore, it eases the operation of switching between different
airlines companies. Therefore, many companies provide the air miles system to
gain customers’ attention and to keep them as well.
 Threat of a Substitute Products or Services
The threat of substitutes differs from the regional and international airlines. In the
regional airlines it can be higher as people can drive their cars or use trains as a
way to travel within the same region, but on the international level people use
airplanes to move faster and more comfortable. In the Europe they are using
trains to travel from country to another for example, it’s easy to travel by train
from the UK to France by “Eurostar train” in just 1 hour 40 minutes (London to
France).

However, in many countries trains are not available ex UAE, accordingly such
carries have a weak threaten in the airlines industry since they are not used for
long distance journeys by many countries.
 Rivalry among existing firms
In airlines industry, the rivalry is very high between the companies, as there is
variety of airline companies that provides best aircrafts and services to
passengers. For instance, many companies try to expand their market shares by
offering best prices, best customer services and exclusive promotions as well as
by being creative in their advertising campaigns. (Ex: Air Arabia is low cost
airline).
(Thompson & Strickland, 1995)
4.1.4 Key Competitors
 British Airways
British Airways is ranked # 2 in Europe and one of the biggest in the world. They
have 300 planes and 216 destinations in 94 countries. The key success factors
of British Airways are: it’s a member of the largest alliance and it is known of its
technology projects in offering unique services, such as touch screens service
and being the first in implementing full flat beds.
 Qatar Airways
Qatar Airways was established in 1994. It has 44 fleets linking 69 international
destinations. Its services and events, gives the company special position
amongst its competitors.

The success of Qatar Airways comes from its aggressive growth plan that
includes the construction and development of the new Doha international airport,
which will include the world’s largest aircrafts' hangers to be used for
maintenance of Qatar Airways. Additionally, by 2009 Qatar Airways plans to get
36 aircrafts from Airbus, including two A380, for Qatar Airways. (Airline website,
AmeInfo)
 Singapore Airlines
Singapore Airlines is one of the most respected travel brands founded in 1947. It
has a fleet of 90 aircrafts and it flies to more than 60 cities in 30 countries. Many
factors cause Singapore Airlines success, such as young and efficient fleets,
educated staff, top ranked travel gateway and its low cost airlines known as
“Tiger Airways”, plus it’s a member of star alliance airline networks. (Singapore
Airlines Company Information)
 American Airlines
American Airlines was founded in 1930 and is positioned as the largest airline in
the world in terms of the total passengers transported of 80 million yearly. It has
the highest number of aircrafts that reach up to 991 and serve 172 cities with five
main hubs. Also it is first to launch the loyalty program “frequent flyers”. All of
theses are considered as the key success of this airline. (American Airlines)
4.1.5 Key Success Factors
To maintain airlines companies’ success, various key factors should be
implemented for this purpose:
 Differentiation

Airline companies tend to differentiate by providing advanced services. For
example, providing the aircraft with the latest technology, such as wide seats, e-
ticketing (as mentioned in 5 porters section) will attract customers and distinguish
the company among other companies. (ex: British Airways).
 Strong brand name
Obtaining a strong brand name plus building a base of loyal customers are the
carriers' companies most concern. It guarantees that customers will stick with the
strong brand name company and ignore any attractive offers form other
competitors. Some airline companies utilize some techniques to have a retain
customers, such as offering a flyer mile to win a free ticket if the points were
completed. (ex: American Airline)
 Alliances
Airline industry is moving toward establishing alliances between companies. This
will let companies to share resources via linking their networks to build a wide
base of customers, develop services and increase number of routes. Additionally,
it results in sharing experience and decreasing the operation costs. Ex. British
Airways is a member of largest airline alliance known as “Oneworld”.
 Relations with supplier
Airline companies must build a strong relation with suppliers by setting long-term
contracts with them. Such relations will benefit the airlines companies, because
this will keep them in the safe side even if there was any change in the pricing
strategy (ex. increasing costs) in the future as there is a contract between them.
The PEST analysis is the best way that leads companies to change their
strategies.

4.1.6 PEST Analysis
 Political factors
The airline industry is affected by political situations, namely wars and terrorism.
For instance, terrorists’ activities in different areas globally, namely USA (11th
Sep), UK, Lebanon and Qatar made the regions unattractive for tourists and
business travelers and reduce the passenger's traffic.
The political instability affected businesses between airlines in Middle East and
the world by facing a difficulty to join any international alliances with any of the
airlines leaders such as American Airlines. (Growth phenomena, Nora &
Byman)
 Economical factors
One of the factors behind any success airlines is having modern airports
supported with latest technology to meet customer’s requirements. UAE for
example plans to invest in developing its main airports in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
The UAE’s total investments on airport development over coming 20 years will
exceed Dh 71 billion.
The benefits of developing airports are: enhancing economy, reducing depends
on oil revenues by moving into new sector (tourism), increasing tourists' number
and thereby driving profits to airline firms. Globally, alliance is considered as the
main factor of many airlines companies success as it reduces the operation
costs.
 Social factors
Some of those factors are: increasing world's population, tourists and number of
educated people. For instance, the population is growing globally, in UAE the

population in 2002 was 3,754,000 people and reached to 4,320,000 in 2004, this
is because UAE is a multicultural country.As the number of expatriates is
increasing, airlines firms’ profits will increase, because those expatriates need to
travel to their homeland sometime. Additionally, many diseases influence the
population in many courtiers, like Bird Flu, those killer diseases affect airline
industry since they reduce population's level. (Economic Development)
 Technological factors
The new technology affected airline industry negatively and positively. For
example, the technology of teleconferencing reduced the need for face to face
business meetings which affects on the number of business travelers and on the
sales of business tickets. However, e-booking system makes the reservation
easier and save many expenses such as reducing the printed tickets. (Current
State)
There is a growth in internet usage world wide. In the UAE, internet accounts are
likely to grow from 251,000 in 2001 to exceed 600,000 accounts by 2006. Thus,
local airlines industry should provide online services to get competitive
advantage ex. Emirates Airline. (UAE to remain on top in Arab Internet market)
4.1.7 Summary of External Environment
The external environment shows airline industry is in its maturity stage with a
slow rate of increase, which resulted in increasing the competition's level. Only
three forces have a direct effect in this industry, namely bargaining power of
suppliers and buyers and intensity of rivalry. The barriers for new entries are high
which reduce the threats of any new entrants. Some factors, such as political,
economy, social and technological affect the industry by either increasing or
decreasing passenger's traffics. Companies use several key factors to expand

their successes to keep a good position and increase loyal customer base, like
differentiating their services, making a strong band name and implementing latest
technology and join alliances.
5 Internal Environment
5.1 SWOT analysis
1. Strengths
 Member of the Arab alliance, known as Arab Air Carriers Organization
promoting cooperation, safety standards among Arab airlines (Arab Air).
 First airline in Arab World that offers online booking service.
 Offering long-haul flights, like from US to Dubai.
 Offering self check-in service for customers at Dubai airport (Emirates
expands).

 At Dubai Air Show 2005, Emirates made an aircraft order of 45 Airbus by
2012 making it the world’s largest purchaser of Airbus’s super-jumbo.
 Providing employees with training, rewards and performance programs,
thus reducing labor costs and increasing employees' loyalty (People).
 An official sponsor of 2006 Fifa World Cup, which will increase its brand
awareness.
 It has its own Frequent Flyer Program known as Skywards Miles that
shared with Srilankan Airways.
 It has recently chosen Dexterra Mobile Platform to enable front-office
mobile solutions that will enhance customer service interaction (Unisys).
 It offers training service to other airlines in Middle East which increase its
profit.
2. Weaknesses
 High Operation costs due to huge investment on buying aircrafts and
implementing new technologies.
 Known of its high prices of tickets comparing to other airlines.
 Not a member of any global alliances (UAE).
 It doesn’t have a hub in Abu Dhabi airport (capital of the UAE).
 Young airline that was established in 1985
3. Opportunities
 The income per capita is growing in UAE.
 Lots of investments will be made by the government of UAE for
developing main airports in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
 There is an overall growth in the population of the world and in UAE.

 World Travel & Tourism Council forecasts that there will be an annual
growth in the number of UAE tourists.
 There is an expected growth in internet users’ worldwide and in UAE.
 Aviation events such as Dubai Air Show promotes for Middle East airlines
among other participates world wide airlines and show the growing of
aviation industry in Middle East ( Walid).
4. Threats
 It is located in politically instable region and the terrorism activities have
been increased in Middle East recently.
 Increase of aviation security costs and insurance which increase the
operational costs of airlines.
 The increase of the fuel prices which rise the operational costs.
 The airline industry might face losses of around $ 3 billion if the oil
prices did not reduce. (IATA)
 New entrants and the raise of low cost airlines.
 The e-ticking system can be abuse by the hackers or it might be
crashed by viruses, this will damage the company database and will
cost a lot of money.
 Passengers can be a threat to the company, as they have a strong
power in the airline industry.
 The natural crises such as the earthquake and hurricane. As mentioned
by Al-Arabia channel, Dubai is threatened by an earthquake (2005).
This will affect the tourism in this region, which will reflected in the
Emirates airline
 There is a possibility of rapid spread of new acute diseases such as
SARS and Bird Flue that affect tourism and airlines.

5.2 Summary of Internal Environment
As external environments, companies should identify its internal factors, namely
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Recognizing that enables
companies to improve, overcome weaknesses, handle opportunities as
advantages and avoid threats. Emirates Airlines has many strengths, like
differentiating from other airlines, as it responses to new technology, such as e-
ticketing and self check-in services. An obvious weakness is the high prices of
Emirates due to its huge investments in ordering aircrafts. Although it has
opportunities (near investments in AD airport and increase of UAE income per
capita in UAE.), many threats are concerning it, such as increase of oil prices,
low cost airlines and the spread of killer diseases. Following section provides
Emirates with the best solution in order to be competitive.
6 Conclusion and Recommendation
1. Is the airline industry an attractive industry?

The airline industry is a huge market as there are 900 airlines’ companies
internationally with total of nearly 22,000 aircrafts, nevertheless it has a low
growth rates as it is in its mature stage of life cycle. (The economic & social
benefits of air transport).
For any new entry the airline industry is considered to be unattractive, because
the demand is low, the competition is strong and the operation costs are
increasing. However, for Emirates Airlines it is attractive as its strategy and
market position creates a good defense against its competitor. For example, it
created a strong brand name and customer loyalty in the market by implementing
the latest technologies in its services to be positioned as a pioneer in the airline
field. It also achieves high profits yearly as it focuses proficiently to enhance its
market position by differentiating in its strategies that would be used to attract
customers such as flyer frequent program.
Also, it has many chances to overcome with all the obstacles that might occur
and affect the airline industry such as political or economical problems, etc. as it
is a member in Emirates Group which enables sharing resources and reducing
the company's expenses, thus leading the company to protect its position in the
market.
Overall, Emirates has a great market position plus it’s a profitable airline which is
measured as a competitive advantage, since it has the opportunity to compete
and expand its business to gain higher profits.
 What is Emirate’s competitive advantage?

Emirates Airlines adopts differentiation generic strategy to gain a competitive
advantage amongst its competitors by offering the highest quality services in
order to be the best company in the market and differentiates from its
competitors. For example, Emirates airlines was the first airline that offered TV
screen for all aircraft's classes. Also it was the first company in the Middle East to
serve the e-ticketing.
In addition, it gained a competitive advantage by focusing in new segments in the
market. For instance, it provides another airline companies such as Qatar
Airways with training courses by using the most modern machines, called plane
simulator to be the only company in the Middle East that offers such service. The
aim of such changes is to be the leader in industry by increasing the brand name
awareness regionally and internationally which will increase the demand and the
profit as well.
 What major issues should Emirates Address?
As the Airline industry is in the maturity stage, there is a strong competition
between airline firms. Each firm should use offensive strategies besides doing
analysis for internal and external factors that may affect its position. The research
and analysis for Emirates airlines address following recommendations:
The operational cost is increasing due to huge investments of Emirates on
aircrafts and services and increase in fuel prices. Emirates should reduce the
costs by making operational improvements, namely improving maintenance
processes, maintaining high aircraft utilization and making effective flight
scheduling. It could also be reduced by investing technology in distribution
channels to reduce labor costs. For instance , it is recommended to install more

self service kiosks in airports of the destinations of Emirates airline since it has
already install ones in Dubai airport.
In response to the threat of low cost airlines, Emirates shouldn't lower its fares
after years of offering advanced services, instead it has to offer new low cost
brand as a subsidiary of Emirates group serving economic travelers who are now
customers of new low cost airlines, thus expanding the market share.
Extending routes is recommended especially there is a growth in tourism UAE.
There are main regions in the world that Emirates do not have routes in, namely
Canada, It has to extend destinations worldwide (especially attractive areas).
Joining a global alliance enables increasing its destinations, offering more fare
options for customers helping to solve problems of new low cost airline.
Investigating technology is recommended for improving customer service and
Emirates has to sign contract with an e-business company that offers airlines
technology solutions. E-CRM strategy is a new technology that Emirates should
implement since internet users' number is increasing. It allows managing long
term relationships with customers (Jiang, 2003).
Generally, Emirates should do analysis for internal and external factors and its
competitors and develop new strategies to stay competitive in the maturity stage.

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