Airlines offer a variety of products ranging from the no-frills air transportation to international first class featuring amenity-filled cubicles with fully reclining seat/beds and attentive in-flight service. This assignment is intended to illustrate the variety of airline product offerings available and stimulate thinking about how best to serve the diverse wants and needs of passengers. Europe’s Ryanair is well known for its cheap fares and bare-bones service. Europe’s old line network carriers including British Airways, Air France/KLM and Lufthansa, on the other hand, offer more choices and features within Europe and to major destinations worldwide. In Asia, low-cost airlines are rapidly expanding in the marketplace. Air Asia and Jetstar are two of the larger LCCs (along with their various subsidiaries). Asia also is home to many full-service airlines such as Japan Airlines, Air China, Cathay Pacific, Singapore, and Korean Air. In a short research paper, compare and contrast a chosen LCC with a full-service airline using Doganis’ 5 key product features as a framework (price, schedule, comfort, convenience, and image). Choose one or two city-pairs served by both carriers on which to base the comparison. Summarize your findings and emphasize critical differences. Extensive data, such as the ancillary fee structure, may be best presented in a table. Discuss the passenger segment(s) targeted by each airline. Conclude with an evaluation of each carrier’s overarching business strategy. Explain your assessment of the most profitable strategy. Assume that your reader is a potential passenger intending to travel on the routes you’ve selected.
