BRITISH AIRWAYS CASE STUDY

British Airways Case Study

British Airways Case Study

Introduction

British Airways (BA) is the UK's largest international scheduled airline, operating international and domestic scheduled and charter air services for the carriage of passengers, freight and mail and the provision of ancillary services. The airline flies to over 550 destinations globally. It has a number of subsidiaries, notably British Airways Holidays Ltd and British Airways Travel Shops Ltd. Its two main operating bases are London's two main airports, Heathrow and Gatwick. BA was a founding partner of the one world alliance, now encompassing American Airlines, Aer Lingus, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, LanChile and Qantas and codeshares with a number of other airlines.

It is one of the most potent strategies of British Airways that they always want to keep the image of their organization high and well maintained. To deal with this issue organization has devised certain policies for example, in order to maintain their public image their policy is to take part in media and social media. Constant contact with different magazines and press releases keep them in good books of the media. To maintain their image with the customers it important to value them and they value them through their different marketing programs that include; loyalty programmes and club of executives.

History

British Airways has a tangled history, dotted with mergers and acquisitions. It owes its roots to Aircraft Transport and Travel, which was formed in 1919, with this company merging with a number of smaller air transport companies to establish British Airways in 1935. In 1939, BA was nationalised and combined with Imperial to form British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC). However, after years as a nationalised company, BA was privatised once again in 1987 (Minztzberg, 2006, p.135-141).

British Airways CitiExpress is a wholly owned subsidiary of BA and operates within the UK and Europe from a number of UK regional airports. It utilises smaller aircraft best suited to regional flying within the UK and Europe.

One of BA's leading subsidiaries is AirMiles Travel promotions, a UK travel agent, selling flights on over 100 airlines and arranging hotel accommodation and rental cars. The company has a customer base of over six million, purchasing with cash, AirMiles or a combination of the two. AirMiles employs around 700 staff (Jordi, 2008, p.58-63).

BA also owns British Airways Holidays. From April 2001, British Airways Holidays was operated as a 50/50 joint venture with Thomas Cook, known as Accoladia Ltd. However, in November 2001, this joint venture was dissolved and British Airways Holidays reverted to BA control. British Airways Engineering also focuses on growing technical capability for passengers.

Within BA, British Airways World Cargo (BAWC) operates as a separate profit centre, flying freight, mail and courier traffic to around 200 destinations in over 80 countries. At the core of its network is Ascentis, a state-of-the-art 83,000 sq m handling centre at Heathrow.

Business Development

During the review period, BA followed a number of main strategies in its business development. Perhaps the most significant of its strategies was its building up of alliances and ...