Airline Industry, Annotated Bibliography Example

It can’t be doubted that the invention of airplanes has changed the lives of people in such a tremendous way that only few other inventions also did. Since the times when airplanes had been used for the first time a lot have been changed not only in the construction techniques and design of planes, but also in the purpose of their usage. Today commercial airplane routes have become such a commonplace that it is quite difficult to imagine how people could live and conduct business without them.

Investopedia: A Forbes Digital Company. (2009). The Industry Handbook: the Airline Industry. Retrieved July 23, 2009, from <http://www.investopedia.com/features/industryhandbook/airline.asp>

This article is initiated for people who are interested in the financial state of the airline industry or for those who wish to invest in it. Thus it provides a lot of information connected with the financial issues. For instance, the article explores the key costs that airlines have – aircrafts’ costs, weather, fuel costs, labor, etc. It also summarizes the key financial ratios/ terms of the industry – available seat mile, revenue passenger mile, revenue per available seat mile. The article also explores other areas which are crucial for the airline industry. In the end, the article provides Porter’s 5 Forces Analysis which summarizes the key features of the airline industry.

I find this source to be quite a reliable one, as it was developed and published by the Forbes Company, which I find to be an expert in financial issues.

In-text citation: A Forbes Digital Company (2009) states that although in the world the airline industry is at least partly government owned, in the USA all major airline companies have come to be privately held.

Kay, J. (2005). Airlines and the canine features of unprofitable industries. Financial Times, September 27, 2005.

In his article John Kay analyzes airline industry from an economical point of view. He states that there are some industries in which governments of almost all developed countries are especially interested and thus they try to encourage people to enter these industries in order to generate greater revenues for the country. And according to Kay airline industry is one of them. But the problem with such industries is that even though they receive subsidies from the government, they stay quite unprofitable for the public investors.

John Kay is a well-known British economist, who is also the leading columnist of the Financial Times, which I find to be very trustworthy for its articles on business topics.

In-text citation: According to Kay (2005) the airline industry is one of the industries governments fight to allow their taxpayers to pour ever more money into black holes.

Davies, R. E. G. (1964). The History of the World’s Airlines. Oxford U.P.

In this book Ron Davies covers the history of commercial aviation for the period of forty years. I find this book to be very useful in conducting the research on airline industry because it provides not only historical facts and chronology of airlines’ development, but the author also tries to analyze all the facts and to draw the conclusions on why everything happened in commercial aviation as it did.

I find information from this book to be really credible as Ron Davies is known as one of the leading specialists in airline and air transport history.

In-text citation: The world’s first airlines were founded in 1909 in Frankfurt and came to be known as DELAG (Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft), and there are still continue to operate five oldest airlines – they are Netherland’s KLM, Australia’s Qantas, Czech Republic’s Czech Airlines, Mexico’s Mexicana, and Colombia’s Avianca (Davies, 1964).

Smith, M. J. (2002). The Airline Encyclopedia, 1909-2000. Scarecrow Press.

This book is a kind of a dictionary that includes information on all the aspects of the commercial air transport. The good point about the book is that it includes operational and statistical profiles of all the companies that operate in the field of air transportation, beginning with major world airlines, and ending the cargo (goods’ transportation) airlines. Another important issue is that this book provides information on airline industry from the aviation, business, and history perspectives.

I find this source to be reliable as it simply gives historical and statistical insight into the development and operation of airline’s industry since the time of its origin, and it doesn’t make any big statements and doesn’t draw any conclusions as it’s a prerogative of the reader.

In-text citation: KLM, the oldest carrier still operating under its original name, was founded in 1919. The first flight (operated on behalf of KLM by Aircraft Transport and Travel) transported two English passengers to Schiphol, Amsterdam from London in 1920 (Smith, 2002).

Doganis, R. (2002). Flying Off Course: The Economics of International Airlines. New York: Routledge, 3^rd Edition.

This book provides a solid insight to the inner workings of the airline and aviation industries. One of the aspects which I find to be the most important and useful about this book is that it includes various case studies that perfectly illustrate the issues raised by the author. The author also gives a critical analysis of all the major tendencies and changes that the aviation industry is currently facing (especially after the September 11). Those include – the rise of the low cost airlines, airline alliances, impact of new technologies, etc.

All editors agree that this book by Doganis is useful and understandable for both experts in the field of aviation and those being the beginners.

In-text citation: In his book Doganis (2002) tries to analyze the impact of new technology on the airline business as well as how to deal with both eroding passenger confidence and the possible worsening of the global economic slowdown after the September 11^th.

Doganis, R. (2001). The Airline Business in the 21^st Century. New York: Routledge.

This book gathers together all the issues and events that according to the author would influence the airline industry in the 21^st century. It presents the major problems with which airline companies’ owners and managers will have to deal and how all these problems will in general effect the world’s economy. As the book was published in 2001 it is now possible to evaluate it on whether the author was correct in his assumptions and predictions.

As we are now in 2009 it is possible for me to understand that the author was inaccurate in some of his predictions. For instance, he couldn’t foresee all the consequences of September 9/11 for the aviation industry, and he also was inaccurate in his predictions of fuel prices.

In-text citation: There is no doubt that the US domestic market is still the single largest aviation market in the world (Doganis, 2001).

Bonsor, K. (2008). How Airlines Work. The Pallet by International Air Cargo Association of Chicago, 64, 1-4.

This article presents fully gathered information on how the airlines operate their businesses. It posses information on the types of airlines that exist, their internal structure and autonomy, price formation polices and strategies that different airlines use. In overall, this article gives readers the complete understanding of the way in which airlines conduct their business and what consequences it has for readers as customers.

I find this article to be quite useful as it attempts to explain people what types of strategies airline companies may use in order to attract customers. The author of the article also tries to explain those issues that might be the most confusing for the airlines’ clients, like those of ticket prices.

In-text citation: In his article Bonsor (2008) states that the airline industry, as any other industry that provides services to the public, is truly depended upon its employees. An airline can have the best planes in the world, but without employees it can do nothing.

Strahan, D. (2008, August 13). Green Fuel for the Airline Industry? New Scientist, 2669, 34-37.

This article presents the biggest problem that the airline industry is currently facing, that is extremely high prices on fuel and the necessity to replace kerosene with an alternative source of energy. The author also summarizes how these issues will affect the ticket prices and thus airlines’ clients. The article describes various alternative fuels that aviation industry can use, discussing pros and cons of every one of them.

In-text citation: According to Strahan (2008) the problem for airline industry is not simply that the jet fuel is too expensive, but more importantly that there is not enough of it left.

McCabe, R. M. (2006). Airline Industry Key Success Factors. Graziadio Business Report, 9(4).

This article summarizes the key factors that make airline companies successful and competitive on the domestic and global markets. According to McCabe there are several areas which are of primary importance for the airline companies. Those are – attracting customers, managing the fleet, managing the people, and managing the finances. The article is useful because it doesn’t simply describe factors of success, but more importantly examines them on the example of eight biggest US airlines.

The article seems to be credible because in addition to the general information it also provides various tables that summarize airlines’ competitive strength, annual earnings and losses, etc.

In-text citation: In his article McCabe (2006) states that even though a lot have changed in the airline industry for the previous several decades, the industry itself has remained as chaotic as it has been before.

Zinnov, LLC. (2007, January). Global Aviation Markets – Analysis. Retrieved July 24, 2009, from http://www.zinnov.com/presentation/Global_Aviation-Markets-An_Ananlysis.pdf

This research conducted and presented by a research agency gives a solid overview of the international aviation market. It presents the main tendencies and statistics of the industry, and makes projections about the main directions in which the industry will develop in the future. It also analyzes the main challenges and opportunities that exist on the global market of aviation as well as on regional ones.

What I find to be useful and comfortable about this presentation is that almost all of its information is presented in the form of various charts, tables, and graphs, which makes information more comprehendible.

In-text citation: According to Zinnov, LLC (2007) in the nearest future global aviation industry will see such trends as liberalization in Asia Pacific region and increased competition in developed markets.