مقابله با بازگشت باربری های منطقه ای : قیمت گذاری و تمایز محصول در بازاریابی شرکت هواپیمایی مدرن

The adoption of the low-cost carrier business model has applied competitive pressure on established network or “legacy” carriers, by offering fares at prices that legacy carriers find it difficult to match and still cover their fixed costs. This paper reports how two medium-sized national airlines-Air New Zealand and Air Canada-have coped with the low-cost threat by, in effect, turning their fixed costs into profit centres. Features such as full regional networks, long-haul connections, frequent flyer programs, membership in global alliances, lounges and business class cabins can be bundled into products which can be marketed and sold profitably to business and even some leisure travellers, and which cannot be easily replicated by low-cost carriers. Although not panaceas, the innovations of Air New Zealand and Air Canada to the competition they face in their domestic and trans-border markets demonstrate the possibility of an effective legacy carrier response to the low-cost carrier business model.

This paper examines how two full service national network carriers – Air New Zealand and Air Canada-have responded to two of the major challenges facing airlines in the 21st century: namely, the continued competitive threat from the low-cost carrier (LCC) business model, and the potentialities of the internet as an instrument for marketing and transacting air carrier services. The analytical context is the “empty core” hypothesis (Button, 2004), to the effect that the large fixed costs incurred by “legacy” carriers make it difficult-perhaps impossible-for them to set prices adequate to cover all their costs without those prices being well above marginal variable costs, and therefore vulnerable to predatory marginal cost pricing by rivals, with this unstable situation presumably exacerbated when the rivals are low-cost carriers without large fixed costs of their own to cover because of their flexible, route profitability-based business model. Some legacy carriers have responded to the LCC threat by stripping out their own fixed costs – either by in effect turning themselves into low-cost carriers on short-and medium haul routes (e.g. Aer Lingus), or by setting up LCC subsidiaries and deploying them as a “fighting-brand” on the leisure-oriented routes most susceptible to LCC competition (e.g. Qantas with its subsidiary Jetstar).1 In contrast, the strategies of Air New Zealand and Air Canada share a quite different response to the LCC business model. Instead of stripping out fixed costs, they turn them to their advantage. The basic idea of this paper is that legacy carriers' fixed costs can actually deliver market value; that this value can be enhanced by shrewd and innovative pricing and marketing practices, and that such practices cannot easily be replicated by LCCs and so can deliver a source of competitive advantage to the legacy carriers which may compensate for the LCCs' lower variable costs. These valuable “fixed” elements in Air New Zealand and Air Canada's product portfolios include their status as national carriers, the density and coverage of their domestic and international route structures, the penetration of their websites, their membership of global alliances, their FFPs, their lounges and other benefits for high-status travellers, and their business class cabins.

These case studies document two legacy airlines' innovative and spirited responses to the low-cost carrier challenge, and demonstrate, at the very least, that even well-run LCCs are not a force majeure, sweeping aside all resistance. The simplicity which is the strength of the low-cost business model is also a potential source of weakness, that can be exploited by a legacy carrier determined to extract full value from its unique fixed assets. There may, however, be some doubts about the applicability of the Air Canada and Air New Zealand strategies to the situation of legacy carriers in larger markets such as the US and Europe. These two airlines have the advantages of national carriers, which include a myriad of formal and informal business linkages within their home market; complete regional coverage of this, and the capacity to operate on long-haul routes where LCCs cannot follow. Thus, it is quite striking that Air Canada is apparently unable to extract the same markup on its premium fare class on trans-border routes, where its competition is other legacy carriers, as it earns domestically in competition only with WestJet. The practices of the US legacy carriers, however, which still impose return-journey restrictions on their low-fare tickets, are coming to seem rather antediluvian, and it is just possible that the examples of two “foreign” carriers' quite successful responses to LCC competition might give them the nerve to try something innovative themselves.