OverRun
30th Jan 2003, 06:51
Newly arrived is a book on low cost airline strategy. Interesting here because there are 830 posts in PPRUNE on the topic of low cost airlines (I just checked), and quite a few mis-conceptions.
PPRUNE isn’t a commercial site, and I don’t know the author, didn’t write the book and can’t profit from it. HOWEVER this book does cover some of the fundamentals on low cost airline strategies, and (since it is unlikely to be marketed on many airport bookstands), I’ve taken the liberty of mentioning here because it is the lastest thinking on the low fare airline business, particularly in the EU and the strategies adopted by the players in the market. Moderator – please wipe this post if you think it is out of line.
Cleared for take-off: structure and strategy in the low fare airline business. By Thomas C. Lawton. Published by Ashgate in 2002, 234 pages, price £45, ISBN 0 7546 1269 4
Other thoughts from the review by Keith Mason in Journal of Air Transport Management (which is also not widely circulated so I’ll stick some comments here): he sets out to provide the reader with an introduction to and overview of the low fares airline sector. He seeks to identify the players in the market, the strategies they adopt and the resultant market structures.
The book's publication is timely, as a number of earlier considerations of the low fare sector have tended to treat all the participants as having similar strategies. Lawton clearly differentiates the strategies of easyJet and Go, and other European low cost airlines from the airline that he considers most closely reflects the "true" low cost airline model; Ryanair. The text is an ideal introduction to the subject covering Southwest's development, EU liberalisation and the subsequent growth of Ryanair, easyJet and others. In places Lawton has valuable contributions to make in the field, particularly in distinguishing the differing business models and strategies that have all been called "low cost" and in exploding some of the myths expounded by traditional airline executives in Europe that their home markets are in some way safe from low cost airline competition.
PPRUNE isn’t a commercial site, and I don’t know the author, didn’t write the book and can’t profit from it. HOWEVER this book does cover some of the fundamentals on low cost airline strategies, and (since it is unlikely to be marketed on many airport bookstands), I’ve taken the liberty of mentioning here because it is the lastest thinking on the low fare airline business, particularly in the EU and the strategies adopted by the players in the market. Moderator – please wipe this post if you think it is out of line.
Cleared for take-off: structure and strategy in the low fare airline business. By Thomas C. Lawton. Published by Ashgate in 2002, 234 pages, price £45, ISBN 0 7546 1269 4
Other thoughts from the review by Keith Mason in Journal of Air Transport Management (which is also not widely circulated so I’ll stick some comments here): he sets out to provide the reader with an introduction to and overview of the low fares airline sector. He seeks to identify the players in the market, the strategies they adopt and the resultant market structures.
The book's publication is timely, as a number of earlier considerations of the low fare sector have tended to treat all the participants as having similar strategies. Lawton clearly differentiates the strategies of easyJet and Go, and other European low cost airlines from the airline that he considers most closely reflects the "true" low cost airline model; Ryanair. The text is an ideal introduction to the subject covering Southwest's development, EU liberalisation and the subsequent growth of Ryanair, easyJet and others. In places Lawton has valuable contributions to make in the field, particularly in distinguishing the differing business models and strategies that have all been called "low cost" and in exploding some of the myths expounded by traditional airline executives in Europe that their home markets are in some way safe from low cost airline competition.