Assignment 4: Airline Product Offering

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. Your paper should provide a sufficiently detailed comparison that this passenger will
have the information needed to choose between the two airlines. This passenger may be
traveling for business or leisure, so provide sufficient information with either purpose. Note:
Before beginning your research, ensure that the needed data are available from the airlines’
websites and other online sources.
Use APA style including a title page, table(s) or charts as appropriate, citations, reference list,
running head, page numbers, and section headings. Of course, an introduction and conclusion
are always appropriate. There is no page number requirement, but five pages, not including title
page, reference list, and appendices, should be sufficient.