Competitive Advantage Case Study: Alaska Airlines

Competitive Advantage Case Study: Alaska Airlines

When we talk about airlines, we usually think of the three major airlines like Delta, United, and Southwest as be the most successful.  Not one person that I talked to has ever mentioned Alaska Airlines among the most successful. Even compared to airlines such as American, Delta, or United, Alaska Airlines holds its own. To remain ahead of the curve and give the client the best experiences in the industry, it has been one of the pioneers in using the latest and greatest techniques. This paper will discuss the types of techniques that has made Alaska Airlines one of the power house airline companies to operate out of the United States. At Alaska Airlines, their goal is to give you more time to explore, by taking the hassle out of air travel. I hope that this paper explains their advantage that they have over the other airline companies that operate in their region. Alaska Airlines was founded by Linious "Mac" McGee in 1932 and started flying out of Anchorage. In 1934 McGee merged with Star Air Service in 1934, creating at that time the largest airline in Alaska, with a whopping 22 aircraft. They finally settled on Alaska Airlines after a few more mergers and name changes and it stuck. It wasn't until a few Fairbanks businessmen named Ron Cosgrave and Bruce Kennedy came aboard in 1972 that the airline began to emerge in the successful airline it is today by emphasizing on customer service. Even when many carriers stared at the end of the road for their companies in the late 1970’s, Alaska Airlines persevered by linking themselves with two other airlines that had a comparable commitment to customer service as well.  They tripled their fleet size and extended their route map into popular destination spots such as Mexico and Russia. This growth has led to Alaska Airlines pioneering many customer revolutions and making the travel experience a less stressful and easier experience for travelers. One of the greatest upgrades they created was to use a self-bag tagging option to enable clients to print their tags at home for their bags and streamline the process of having clients checked in at the airport. In 2013, Alaska airlines were the first airline company to participate in this program. They began using it on flights running from Seattle to Hawaii and have now integrated an express self-tag lane in almost every airport. This has diminished and the need to even visit the front desk has been eliminated in some airports. Dennis Crosby (2015) writes in his article, “How were Alaska Airlines achieved its run of success, especially under sometimes-trying economic circumstances? The answer is found in the airline’s highly effective application of its technological prowess to move toward more thorough automation of processes, thereby greatly enhancing overall efficiency.” This summary of what makes them such a success by staying in the frontline of information system modernizations. You'd think it would be the peak of their technological prowess to streamline the check-in process and essentially eliminate the need to visit the front desk, but it doesn't end there. A schedule planning system is also used by Alaska Airlines to automate the schedule change process. “Analyzing the schedule in this manner, the airline is able to identify instances in which booked demand is higher or lower than capacity in a given market” (Crosby 2015). They also use state-of - the-art fleet management technology to ensure that they proactively assign the aircraft type most suitable for the flight at hand. All their success and drive to have the best technology and customer experience leaders has resulted them to compete with the large 4 airline operators from a tiny 3-passenger aircraft flying only in Alaska. Just last year they put the heat on larger airlines by acquiring Virgin Airlines for 2.5 billion dollars (Kim 2016). Combined the business in America's now fifth biggest. Lookout large 4 because the city may quickly have a new and improved sheriff. I will close this paper by saying this At Alaska Airlines, our goal is to give you more time to explore, by taking the hassle out of air travel. With a long history of innovation, making travel safer and easier for our customers, Alaska Airlines is credited with several firsts in the industry. In 1995, we were the first U.S. airline to sell an airplane ticket online. The following year, we pioneered satellite-based GPS technology to fly more safely and precisely.

References

• Alaska Airlines Historical Overview. (2016). Retrieved January 15, 2017, from https://www.alaskaair.com/content/about-us/history/overview.aspx
• Crosby, D. (2015). Growing Forward | Sabre Airline Solutions. Retrieved January 14, 2017, from http://www.ascendforairlines.com/2015-issue-no-1/growing-forward
• Kim, S. (2016, April 4). What You Should Know About the Virgin America, Alaska Air Merger. Retrieved January 14, 2017, from http://abcnews.go.com/Business/virgin-america-alaska-air-merger/story?id=38143131