Fasten Your Seatbelt The Passenger is Flying the Plane

Optimizing Fleet for Flexibility and Customer Value -- Customer Focus -- Financing Mix -- Fleet Mix -- Alliances -- Aligning the Corporate Culture -- Fighting the Last War -- The Changing Competitive Landscape -- Requirements on Management -- Conclusions -- 4 Renovating and Innovating Products -- Revisiting Customer Concerns and Expectations -- Renovating Existing Products -- Monitoring Game Changing Competitors -- Recent Successes -- New Efforts -- Seeking and Creating Innovation -- Conclusions -- 5 Pricing for Mutual Benefit -- Reviewing Passenger Concerns with Pricing Strategies -- Perceived Unfairness -- A Lack of Integrity -- Price Ratio not Justified by Product Features -- Sensing Pricing-Related Emerging Forces -- Real Yield Declining -- High Fare Traffic Volume Shrinking -- Fare Structure Changes -- Impact Spreads to International Markets -- Customer Wants and Needs in Pricing Design -- Clarity and Accessibility -- Stability -- Fairness -- Flexibility -- Accessibility -- Simplicity -- Brand Value -- Other Price vs. Product Tradeoffs -- Passenger-Aligned Pricing for Profit Maximization -- Simplicity-Complexity Tradeoffs -- Value-Based Pricing -- Revenue Cultivation -- Conclusions -- 6 Exploiting Distribution Diversity -- Major Forces Impacting Airline Distribution -- Passengers -- Technology -- Deregulation -- What Customers Want from the Distribution System -- Control -- Credibility and Trust -- Ease of Access and Use -- Engagement and Loyalty Considerations -- Corporate and Group Sales -- Purpose of Trip -- Self-Service versus Full Service -- Financial Protection and Insurance -- Inventory Control -- Choice of Channels -- The Evolving Relationship with Agencies -- The Growing Focus on Distribution Costs -- Optimizing Airline Distribution Costs -- Conclusions -- 7 Developing Truly Integrated Alliances -- Recognizing Customer Perceptions