The airline industry is in a state of radical restructuring as its markets and key stakeholders (customers, airline labour and management groups, governments, and the financial community) adjust to the new aviation realities. Airline executives can be forgiven for being overwhelmed by technology proliferation, zestful new paradigm airlines, September 2001, business cycles, Iraq, SARS, and animal diseases. The leadership challenge for all carriers is now to select and execute appropriate business models, thinking both 'inside' and 'outside' the 'box', to turn conventional wisdom upside down to achieve dramatic increases in productivity. Some legacy carriers still need to create an effective strategy for much larger cycles that encompass major discontinuities. Burdened by past decisions, they are forced to fight with one hand tied behind their back to 'convert volume to value', to survive and prosper. Some new airlines have been at the forefront of shaping change, developing a vision of the mass-market, assessing the customer value of their core processes, and using a 'back-to-basics' business approach. Both groups should take a sideways glance at what works in other industries and implement those insights into actions.

Renowned airline business visionary and sage adviser, Nawal Taneja, offers insights, inspiration, and practical measures, based on his extensive experience and practices in other businesses, on how high-level airline decision makers can extend the boundaries of their businesses to adapt to the dramatically changing lifestyles of consumers, now accelerated by the global pandemic

In 21st Century Airlines: Connecting the Dots, Nawal Taneja addresses the challenges and opportunities facing the airline industry as it tries to innovate and create products and services that are radically different by 'connecting the dots' at four key levels: recognizing the implications of global events, improving cross-functional collaboration within the organization, working more closely with the travel chain, and providing much higher engagements with connectors within the social networks. The book synthesizes insights gained from the experience of non-traditional businesses, such as Uber, that have no physical assets and that focus on scalability through platforms, as well as traditional businesses, such as Mercedes-Benz, that are transitioning from operators of physical assets to adapt to the on-demand and sharing economies. These insights show pragmatically that digitizing airline businesses would require digital mind-sets, digital technologies, digital strategies, and digital workplaces to explore new frontiers in value for both customers and airlines. Moreover, forward-thinking airlines need to consider working with bimodal organizational structures, in which one group optimizes current business models (network, fleet, and schedule planning, as well as revenue management) while a second group explores innovative ways to add digital features to physical products to provide a consistent experience throughout the journey. The book is written for all senior-level practitioners of airlines and related businesses worldwide, as well as senior-level government policymakers.

The COVID-19 pandemic represents an extraordinary inflection point that caught airlines worldwide unprepared, causing CEOs to recalibrate their business models. This book explains why this unprecedented pandemic is different from the past disruptions experienced by the airline industry during the past 50 years, and what airlines and related businesses now can do to adapt to the dramatically changed marketplace. This book presents two future scenarios: continuous improvements and elastic supply. These are considered in three specific contexts for the rebuilding of the airline business. These contexts, in the order of urgency with respect to change from the status quo, are the following. The first context is for airlines to become better prepared to deal with frequent and deeper disruptions that could be localized or globalized relating to such areas as climate change, geopolitics, and cybersecurity. The second context is to collaborate and integrate within the much broader travel ecosystem, possibly using platforms to innovate on new value systems. The third context, which has always been the case and drives the first two, is for airlines to offer real solutions to people's travel needs, solutions developed with imagination and turbocharged innovation, even as we contemplate new technology airplanes and mobility as a service solutions. This book is recommended reading for all senior-level practitioners of airlines and related businesses, as well as aviation policy makers worldwide.

Fasten Your Seatbelt: The Passenger is Flying the Plane is the fourth in a series written at the encouragement of practitioners in the global airline industry. Core customers are beginning to seize control of the direction of the industry from airline management. Customers are doing so due to deep dissatisfaction with what is being offered by traditional carriers across all areas, including network, product, price, customer service and the distribution system. New airlines have clearly focused business designs with the discipline to reject non-valued products or services. In the US, new airlines score higher in customer satisfaction, offering lower fares and making larger operating profits. This book is about customer behaviour and how to address it. It provides detailed but easy-to-read practical discussion of the changes required on the part of airline management not only to think boldly, but also to execute courageously and relentlessly, ground-breaking strategies to fly ahead of their customers. As with previous books written by Nawal Taneja, the primary audience continues to be senior level practitioners within the global airline industry - in both traditional carrier and low complexity carrier segments. The approach is impartial, candid and pragmatic, based on what is happening in the actual market place rather than theoretical business models.

- Nawal Taneja shows how airlines can take their retailing strategies to a new paradigm, offering customers air travel solutions that will increase demand and build loyalty. - Drawing on expertise and experience from outside of aviation, the author explains in practical terms how airlines can overcome obstacles and innovate successful fulfilment that will protect and grow the business. - Expertly reading and anticipating the new normal of a demand surge post-pandemic and how to utilize retailing to attract and retain the current and next generation of air travellers, Nawal Taneja further cements his reputation as a unique visionary and sage adviser, demonstrating why he is held in such regard by the highest-level decision-makers in the global aviation industry.

Designing Future-Oriented Airline Businesses is the eighth Ashgate book by Nawal K. Taneja to address the ongoing challenges and opportunities facing all generations of airlines. Firstly, it challenges and encourages airline managements to take a deeper dive into new ways of doing business. Secondly, it provides a framework for identifying and developing strategies and capabilities, as well as executing them efficiently and effectively, to change the focus from cost reduction to revenue enhancement and from competitive advantage to comparative advantage. Based on the author's own extensive experience and ongoing work in the global airline industry, as well as through a synthesis of leading business practices both inside and outside of the industry, Designing Future-Oriented Airline Businesses sets out to demystify numerous concepts being discussed within the airline industry and to facilitate managements to identify and articulate the boundaries of their business models. It provides material from which managements can set about answering the key questions, especially with respect to strategies, capabilities and execution, and pursue an effective redesign of their business. As with the author's previous books, the primary audience is senior-level practitioners of differing generations of airlines worldwide as well as related businesses. The material presented continues to be at a pragmatic level, not an academic exercise, to lead managements to ask themselves and their teams some critical thought-provoking questions.

Technology is changing expectations in the airline industry. Passengers want to be in control, and they expect airlines to become solution providers and aggregators of value, to provide them with personalized services. Airline employees expect to be given the tools to do their jobs and to meet passenger expectations. Airline executives expect to make returns that are reasonable and relatively stable through business cycles. All of these expectations can be met by airlines through the effective and efficient leveraging of information and technology, to shift from being operations- and product-centric to becoming customer-centric and dramatically improving the overall passenger travel experience throughout the travel cycle. In this new book by world-renowned airline expert Nawal K. Taneja, the 7th in a series with Ashgate, the author explores and explains the game-changing opportunities presented to the industry by new-generation information and technology. He shows how information and technology can now drive, not just enable, an airline's strategy to become truly customer-centric at a personalized level, while at the same time enabling the operator to reduce costs, enhance revenues, reduce risks and become much more flexible and agile by better managing complexity.

The global airline industry, facing significant changes and discontinuity is prompted and forced to deal with a "new normal." Who would have imagined a few years ago that: - a significant percentage of consumers in the US now prefer to fly low-cost airlines instead of full-service airlines because they perceive the product to be better, - airlines would generate up to a third of their total income from non-ticket revenue, - many low-cost airlines would add complexity to their original simple business models through the development of code-share agreements, the use of global distribution systems, and travel agents to distribute their seats, - Jetstar, a low-cost subsidiary of Qantas, would grow faster and be more profitable than its parent, - a survey carried out by Ryanair would show that 42 percent of passengers would be willing to stand on short (one hour) flights if they could pay 50 percent less than seated passengers, - passengers could pay as little as US$2,000 for a transatlantic Business Class ticket on top-brand airlines, - Lufthansa would have ownership in airlines based in Austria, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK, and the US, and that it would continue to pursue equity ownership in airlines based in Poland and Scandinavia, or - the Japanese and Canadian governments would struggle to find different ways to bail out their heretofore flag carriers? To deal with this upcoming "new normal", airlines have to go beyond their short-term circumstantial strategies - they need strategic renewal of their ageing business model. In this candidly-written book, Nawal Taneja explains what will separate the winners from the losers. He maintains the leaders will be the airlines that: (1) exploit this crisis-driven change to their best advantage, (2) learn to work around the airline-inherent constraints that prevent them from running their businesses just like other businesses, (3) learn from successes and failures of other global enterprises, (4) sharpen their business intelligence, analytics, and strategic agility, and (5) proactively explore the "pockets of growth" in this emerging-markets century. To help airline executives become informed of new competitive games, the author analyzes numerous business sectors such as auto, hospitality, retail, technology, and entertainment. For example, relevant lessons can be learned from the strategic mistakes made by the US automakers. Likewise, emergent and compelling insights can be gained in superior customer experience from Ritz Carlton and Zappos, and in value-creating innovation from Cirque du Soleil and Zipcar. The book also features a multitiude of forewords from airlines and related businesses to provide readers with multiple perspectives on the changing landscape in the global airline industry. Nawal Taneja is a career analyst of the global airline industry with wide-ranging experience in the aviation industry, academia, and public policy. Encouraged by industry executives, he has written five other books for practitioners in the global airline industry, including FASTEN YOUR SEATBELT: The Passenger is Flying the Plane and Flying Ahead of the Airplane.

Airlines willing to develop insight from foresight relating to the expected 'step phase changes' will eventually improve their margins. However, the backward-looking airline, managed using old strategic levers and short-term metrics, will cease to exist, merge, shrink, become more dependent on government support, or become irrelevant. 'Management innovations' are not going to deliver the required improvements; innovation within management is essential for airlines' survival. In Flying Ahead of the Airplane, Nawal Taneja analyzes global changes and thought-provoking scenarios to help airline executives adjust and adapt to the chaotic world. Drawing on his experience of real airline situations worldwide, the author concludes that there is a gulf between what executives are doing now and what they need to do to stay ahead of the curve. To close this gap, the author suggests that airline executives focus on just three relevant initiatives: a) aligning business and technology strategies, b) redesigning organization structures to centralize the role of the scheduling function, and c) developing relevant brands that integrate social networking technology. To support this third initiative, the book provides insights on branding from 20 fascinating non-aviation case studies from around the world. Flying Ahead of the Airplane will assist practitioners in airlines of every size to integrate future trends into their mainstream thinking and launch flexible business models to manage risk and compete effectively in the 'flattening world'.

Fasten Your Seatbelt: The Passenger is Flying the Plane is the fourth in a series written at the encouragement of practitioners in the global airline industry. Core customers are beginning to seize control of the direction of the industry from airline management. Customers are doing so due to deep dissatisfaction with what is being offered by traditional carriers across all areas, including network, product, price, customer service and the distribution system. New airlines have clearly focused business designs with the discipline to reject non-valued products or services. In the US, new airlines score higher in customer satisfaction, offering lower fares and making larger operating profits. This book is about customer behaviour and how to address it. It provides detailed but easy-to-read practical discussion of the changes required on the part of airline management not only to think boldly, but also to execute courageously and relentlessly, ground-breaking strategies to fly ahead of their customers. As with previous books written by Nawal Taneja, the primary audience continues to be senior level practitioners within the global airline industry - in both traditional carrier and low complexity carrier segments. The approach is impartial, candid and pragmatic, based on what is happening in the actual market place rather than theoretical business models.

This book has clear aims: to address both the multi-faceted challenge - that the industry has never made any sustainable profits, and some possible opportunities for its different constituents (e.g. management, labor, and governments) to enable airlines to break out of the almost zero profit-margin game. It provides pragmatic insights into: the complexities of the airline business; the actual and perceived obstacles to achieving reasonable profit margin; past and present (successful and unsuccessful) strategies; plausible future prospects for global passenger growth; and alternative airline business models - particularly the type of models that have led to enduring success for a few. The audience includes airline senior executives, members of the board, major shareholders, government policy makers, labor leadership, the airline investment community, aircraft manufacturers.

The airline industry is in a state of radical restructuring as its markets and key stakeholders (customers, airline labour and management groups, governments, and the financial community) adjust to the new aviation realities. Airline executives can be forgiven for being overwhelmed by technology proliferation, zestful new paradigm airlines, September 2001, business cycles, Iraq, SARS, and animal diseases. The leadership challenge for all carriers is now to select and execute appropriate business models, thinking both 'inside' and 'outside' the 'box', to turn conventional wisdom upside down to achieve dramatic increases in productivity. Some legacy carriers still need to create an effective strategy for much larger cycles that encompass major discontinuities. behind their back to 'convert volume to value', to survive and prosper. Some new airlines have been at the forefront of shaping change, developing a vision of the mass-market, assessing the customer value of their core processes, and using a 'back-to-basics' business approach. Both groups should take a sideways glance at what works in other industries and implement those insights into actions. Written by an experienced airline business strategist and international in scope, this wide-ranging book identifies challenges and problems, presents comprehensive analyses and suggests some solutions. to revitalize product development and renew the customer experience. He deals with public policy and the need to revise supplier relationships, especially with aircraft maintenance providers, and looks at successes and failures in other industries. This is rounded off with a clarion call to governments, labour unions, airports, manufacturers, suppliers and above all airline management, to shake off the past, and to address the challenges and opportunities. His approach is to provide impartial analysis and pragmatic insights into vital enablers of change, potential business models, execution strategy, ways to make stakeholders more influential, wisdom from other businesses, and to present scenarios to make busy executives stop and think. global airline and related industries, as well as those affected by the industry and seeking a deeper understanding of it. This includes government civil aviation departments, the aviation divisions of the financial community (investment banks and leasing companies), aircraft manufacturers and their suppliers, airports, information technology companies, as well as customers and other stakeholders.

In the rapidly evolving airline industry, new technologies play an increasingly critical role in the delivery of real and perceived value in reducing costs, enhancing revenue, and improving customer service and customer safety/security. This book focuses at a senior executive level, examining the key forces affecting the airline business and their potential in terms of short and long-term strategies. The author discusses the role of emerging technology on the airline industry, defined very broadly and including computers, information, databases, aircraft, telecommunications, Internet, wireless, speech recognition, face recognition, etc. His argument is that technology should not only be an enabler of business strategy but crucially the driver of business strategy. The central theme is the vital interaction between technology and business strategy across a wide spectrum of functions - executives sharing their insights of what is needed in terms of revolutions in consumers, technologies, and productivities. What has held airlines back are not so much legacy systems but legacy mindsets, organizational structures and processes, as well as the intelligent selection, investments, and implementation of value-adding technologies. The book is the outcome of the author's own experience while working with a number of airlines and his participation in many discussions with practitioners in the airline and technology firms.

This book provides a flight plan for riding the impending connectivity transformation curve. It takes the perspective of actionability, highlighting initiatives that executives in airlines and related businesses can use from the insights of multi-industry executives. The emphasis is on execution, not on the concepts themselves. There is a cluster of at least four distinct megatrends that may converge to form disruptive conditions: (1) elevated expectations of existing and new customer segmentations, those who expect available and accessible air mass transportation systems, and those who expect connected services and seamless travel on different modes of transportation; (2) new emerging technology, incorporated in the air and ground vehicles, that will create new opportunities for existing and new service providers to offer new value propositions; (3) platforms developed around the ecosystem of customers; and (4) the impact on travel that the fast-changing demographic and economic characteristics of two major countries: India and China. These megatrends could lead existing or new businesses to create value propositions specifically dedicated to the new segments once each reaches a critical mass. Drawing on the author's own experience in the airline industry and related businesses, this book discusses the "how", relating to reimagining the business, re-entrepreneuring the organization, innovating through partnerships, reengaging with customers and employees, and rebranding the business in response to these trends. This book is recommended reading for all senior-level practitioners of airlines and related businesses worldwide.

In 21st Century Airlines: Connecting the Dots, Nawal Taneja addresses the challenges and opportunities facing the airline industry as it tries to innovate and create products and services that are radically different by 'connecting the dots' at four key levels: recognizing the implications of global events, improving cross-functional collaboration within the organization, working more closely with the travel chain, and providing much higher engagements with connectors within the social networks. The book synthesizes insights gained from the experience of non-traditional businesses, such as Uber, that have no physical assets and that focus on scalability through platforms, as well as traditional businesses, such as Mercedes-Benz, that are transitioning from operators of physical assets to adapt to the on-demand and sharing economies. These insights show pragmatically that digitizing airline businesses would require digital mind-sets, digital technologies, digital strategies, and digital workplaces to explore new frontiers in value for both customers and airlines. Moreover, forward-thinking airlines need to consider working with bimodal organizational structures, in which one group optimizes current business models (network, fleet, and schedule planning, as well as revenue management) while a second group explores innovative ways to add digital features to physical products to provide a consistent experience throughout the journey. The book is written for all senior-level practitioners of airlines and related businesses worldwide, as well as senior-level government policymakers.

Airline business models continue to be shaped by powerful forces relating to customers, complexities and regulators. However, at the same time, there are emerging technologies that can help airlines cater to the needs of their changing customer bases and manage the complexities of the business. In his previous books, Nawal Taneja has deliberated on these forces and how the airline industry is poised for disruptive change that could come from within or outside of the industry. He also discussed the point that the airline planning systems and process in use are neither contemporary nor sufficiently integrated to meet the changing needs of customers who now are looking for outcomes, not products. In Re-platforming the Airline Business: To Meet Travelers' Total Mobility Needs, Taneja not only reiterates the need for transformation of the airline business but provides a map of the transformational process. This book proposes that different sectors of the aviation industry, particularly airlines and airports, should consider using not just a wide array of technologies (Artificial Intelligence, biometrics, blockchain, and the Internet of Things), but also specifically-designed customer-centric platforms to make informed decisions and to develop and implement transformative strategies to meet travelers' total mobility needs. These technologies and platforms can enable airlines and airports to achieve scale and scope as well as agility and flexibility (through strategic partnerships) to offer intelligently aggregated travel-related services right now. Subsequently, they will enable various members in the travel chain to provide solutions to travelers' global mobility requirements, effectively and with better experiences.

Many business sectors have been, and are being, forced to compete with new competitors-disrupters of some sort-who have found new ways to create and deliver new value for customers often through the use of technology that is coupled with a new underlying production or business model, and/or a broad array of partners, including, in some cases, customers themselves. Think about the disruption created by Apple by the introduction of the iPod and iTunes, and by Netflix within the entertainment sectors using partners within the ecosystem; think of Uber that didn't build an app around the taxi business but rather built a mobility business around the app to improve customer experience. Airline Industry considers whether the airline industry is poised for disruptive innovations from inside or outside of the industry. Although airlines have a long history of continuous improvements and innovation, few of their innovations can be classified as disruptive innovations. The few disruptive innovations that did emerge were facilitated, for example by new technology (jet aircraft) and government policy (deregulation). Now there are new forces in play-customers who expect to receive products that are more personalized and experience-based throughout the entire journey, new customer interfaces (via social media), advanced information systems and analytics, financially powerful airlines based in emerging nations, and the rise of unencumbered entrepreneurs who think differently as well as platform-focused integrators.