BRITISH AIRWAYS

I - SWOT Analysis

Strengths

The strength of the airline includes the excellent new fleet of aircrafts purchased to compliment comfortable traveling of passengers. This move was made to counter the wretched state of travel and complains received by the previous fleet used by British Airways. An amazing magnitude of operations allows British Airways an advantage over her competitors by catering to a wider variety of customers. Competitor airlines, such as Virgin Atlantic Airways have a magnitude of operations 15 times lesser than that of British Airways [Fedrick, 2002]. A great diversity of routes flatters this great magnitude of operations. These factors make the services of BA more accessible to prospective customers in United Kingdom and around the world. Packages ensuring customers a better mileage for their money make the airline more attractive and offer competition to the airline industry, triggering an opportunity of earning larger revenues. British Airways offers its customers services of world-class quality, which is comparable to the services offered by the best airlines from the globe. These services include measures to facilitate flight reservation and booking from the World Wide Web, customer support, terminal facilities and other services involving comfortable traveling of customers while onboard and waiting for connecting flights. The airline enjoys stability from its alliances with OneWorld. Some of the airlines in this alliance are American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Emirates and Deutsche Ba. In pursuit of offering its customers with competitive packages, British Airways keeps on innovating new packages at diverse rates. This alliance has helped BA reach out to 570 locations in about 134 countries. Customers enjoy a variety of destinations and world-class services that cater a similar variety of customers ranging from explorers to executives.

Weaknesses

British Airways bears certain weaknesses that the company needs to overcome. Amongst these weaknesses is the lack of marketing strategy to win customer loyalty. Despite the great infrastructure hosted by the company, BA needs to carry out better marketing schemes to attract prospective travelers. The company suffers from a deprivation of strategic management for investment in the future which is most important for growth of the airline. The airline industry is growing due to globalization and needs of individuals to travel and explore. BA needs a strategic management strategy to keep its goals aligned with growing market trends to match needs of the future. Another weakness of the airline is the weak repute due to compromising operations in the past.  The customers previously complained about the inefficiency of the airline to meet scheduled times of the flights and poor accommodation of travel which resulted discomfort. This gave birth to an ill-repute the airline suffers from its operations in the past.

Opportunities

The opportunities offered to British Airways lie in more or less the same generic category offered by the airline industry to other companies. The airline relies on the willingness of customers to travel in pursuit of business, leisure, need or exploration. Another opportunity specific to British Airways is the flux of business due to the OneWorld alliance that allows the airlines included in the group to cater to a huge variety and quantities of customers. Furthermore, the increasing competition in the airline and transportation industry gives BA the opportunity to actualize their quality services offered to the travelers keeping in mind the strengths of the airline.

These entire opportunities serve as vent for the company’s potential to positively affect the clientage by winning their loyalty and offering chances to increase upon revenues.

Threats

It is reckoned that competition will come up with measures to expand operations to counter efforts made by British Airways. This is one of a couple of threats the airline faces in the airline industry. Although the strengths and opportunities BA offer the company a competitive advantage, the competition will always pose as threat to counter the measures taken by the airline. Global recession is a great factor the industry depends on. A recession is responsible for discouraging investors in the industry, and also the travelers from traveling around the globe in order to save in the interest of necessities. This retirement from spending in the industry discourages the airline from orientating towards goals. The industry is shaken by seasonal changes occurring in the traveling industry. Summer is a commodious for the traveling industry as people all around the globe take time out for vacations, often accompanied by children. Though, in times of extreme weathers, several flight operations are disarranged and compensating flights take over. The seasonal fluctuations pose a threat by the sheer nature of their unpredictability, infringing customer dependence on the airline. Global events, such as the Terrorist activities of September 11, 2001 model one of the biggest threats the airline industry is faced with. People have showed a decline in dependence on airline travel since the terrorist acts, in order to secure their lives. This threats the airline achievement of its goals of providing customers with prestigious services and the airline to earn revenues for its operations.

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II - Operations

Measures are constantly taken to counter the operational difficulties faced by the airline. Restructuring has been carried out within the company to measure up to objectives of the company. Measures to restructure include job cuts and investment into assets to indulge the company into achieving better standards than those offered by the competition. British Airways actively invested in new fleet of aircrafts with more comfort. A technologically advanced image is aimed for with installation of new control systems and terminal facilities at the outlets of the company. The customers welcomed the image of British Airways. [Grugulis ...

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