Regional airline management Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Regional airline management - Term Paper Example The company chosen for the present study is Great Lakes Airlines which is a US based regional airline company headquartered in the USA. The company began its operations in the year 1977 with flights in Iowa. The company since then has expanded with a present fleet size of 38 aircrafts and covering about 64 destinations across the US.   The company went public on April 1994 and its stocks are presently listed and actively traded on the bourses of the NASDAQ stock exchange (Great Lakes Airlines, n.d.). The company mainly uses the Beechcfart 1900D aircraft that has a capacity of 19 seats. The airline mainly operates in the regional markets of the US (Great Lakes Airlines-a, n.d.). The company focuses on service quality and punctuality to gain strategic competitive advantage in the market. The coming sections would analyse the competitive and growth strategies of the airline towards generating a favourable position in the highly competitive business segment. The cost for available seat mile (CASM) value that shows the net of the operational expenses upon the total seat based miles flown by the airlines. The value of the CASM for Great Lakes Airlines in 2011 is pegged at 32.7 cents that represents a 4.5 percent increase from its corresponding figures last year (Great Lakes Airlines-b, 2011, p.15). A higher value of CASM implies that a firm would be easily able to reach the breakeven point (Kundu, 2010, p.105). In this regard the increase in value over the last year represents a scenario.... The company began its operations in the year 1977 with flights in Iowa. The company since then has expanded with a present fleet size of 38 aircrafts and covering about 64 destinations across the US. The company went public on April 1994 and its stocks are presently listed and actively traded on the bourses of the NASDAQ stock exchange (Great Lakes Airlines, n.d.). The company mainly uses the Beechcfart 1900D aircraft that has a capacity of 19 seats. The airline mainly operates in the regional markets of the US (Great Lakes Airlines-a, n.d.). The company focuses on service quality and punctuality to gain strategic competitive advantage in the market. The coming sections would analyse the competitive and growth strategies of the airline towards generating a favourable position in the highly competitive business segment. Competitiveness Cost Structure Cost for Available Seat Mile The competitive factors for an airline can be analysed from some of the key operational and financial figur es. The cost for available seat mile (CASM) value that shows the net of the operational expenses upon the total seat based miles flown by the airlines. The value of the CASM for Great Lakes Airlines in 2011 is pegged at 32.7 cents that represents a 4.5 percent increase from its corresponding figures last year (Great Lakes Airlines-b, 2011, p.15). A higher value of CASM implies that a firm would be easily able to reach the breakeven point (Kundu, 2010, p.105). In this regard the increase in value over the last year represents a scenario in which the company has fared poorly in the present year that is indicated by the higher figure of CASM. Revenue per Available Seat Mile Another significant factor includes the Revenue per Available Seat