Airline Operations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Airline Operations - Essay moralAs a report a year after the 9/11 attacks stated, the costs of the terrorist attacks contain been borne disproportionately by a few industries, especially airlines, tourism and insurance (Makinen, 2002, p. 2). First of all, no airlines flew anyplace in the United States for one week after the 9/11 attacks. This involved a military reserve in flights and plane maintenance/positioning that took months to overcome once flights started.The US Congress gave the airlines access to $15 billion, in the form of $5 billion in short-term emergency assistance and $10 billion in loan guarantees. However, the attacks of 9/11 seem to have sped up economic woes that were already occurring, and lead to major reorganizations such as the Chapter 11 bankruptcy of US Airways (Makinen, 2002, p.2). Reports for airline finances in 2002 were dismal, with US Airways filing for bankruptcy and United Airlines soon following suit. However, several airlines such as JetBlue re ported ruin earnings than expected, solidifying a trend that had been occurring in recent years.One of the major results of th... One of the major results of the 9/11 attacks, and one that has yet to fully return to normal, was the rapid decrease in the amount of money of business travel on airlines. Business travelers were some of the most profit-making customers for airlines, and these often offset the barely recess even or loss-making performance associated with vacation related and other consumer travel. This loss of business travel may be related to the fact that tele communication theory technology has meant that real-time meetings through video conferencing has become the norm quite than the exception. The fact that 9/11 occurred, making business travelers less certain about flying because of pencil eraser concerns may have compounded a situation that was already occurring with the rapid advance in communications technology. Large corporations have also learned that they dont need to pay those higher, unrestricted fares . . . there is always going away to be some business travel that needs flexibility to change flight plans . . . but the insurance policy of many large corporations will be to book in advance to save money or to justify it when you dont (Corridore, 2004, p.1). The traditional airlines such as United and American have also been facing groovy competition from low-cost competitors such as Jet Blue, that have started to move into transcontinental flights. For example, JetBlue offers numerous non-stop California-East slide flights for little more than $100 one-way. A customer can also change their flight (through ever-changing the time or just canceling) up to a minute before the flight with a nominal ($25) charge and the remaining balance to be used for future flights (jetblue, 2006) . The increased use of web-sites that have been created from mark with the idea of making buying/changing a flight very