The History of the World’s Airlines, Annotated Bibliography Example

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 policies, and strategies that different airlines use.  Overall, this article gives readers a complete understanding of the ways in which airlines conduct their business and what positive or negative consequences these practices have for the customers.

I find this article to be quite useful as it attempts to explain 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 that of ticket prices. It can be considered a credible source because it was published by the International Air Cargo Association of Chicago, which was organized in 1955 by a group of airlines/forwarder staff interested in developing stronger individual relationships among those involved in international air freight.

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.

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.  This book is very useful in conducting research of the airline industry because it provides historical facts as well as a chronology of airlines’ development.  The author also tries to analyze all the facts, attempts to draw appropriate conclusions from them on why the status of commercial aviation has evolved as it has.

I find information from this book to be very credible because Davies is known as one of the leading specialists in the airline and air transport history.  His opinion is highly regarded by many professionals within the industry.

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

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 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 attacks on 9/11).  Those changes include the rise of the low cost airlines, airline alliances, impact of new technologies, and much more.

All editors agree that this book by Doganis is useful and can be understood by both experts and beginners within the field of aviation.  The material within the book helps illustrate specific examples of real-world aviation industry case studies that makes this a legitimate source to provide research material.

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 the author believes 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 with and how all of these problems will impact 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.

Looking back on the evolution of the airline industry within the last eight years, it is possible for me to see that the author was inaccurate in some of his predictions.  For instance, he could not foresee all of the major consequences of 9/11 for the aviation industry, and he also was inaccurate in his predictions of fuel prices.  Still, the book provides many important details that are strong arguments for the changes in the aviation industry, and provides the reader with a better understanding of how external factors impact the industry in more than one way.

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

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

This article is written for people who are interested in the financial state of the airline industry as well as for those individuals that wish to invest in it.  Thus, it provides a lot of information connected with the financial issues of the industry.  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 and terms within 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 that summarizes the key features of the airline industry.

I find this source to be quite reliable, as it was developed and published by the Forbes Company, which is an internationally-recognized expert in financial issues.  The information provided within this article offers a very different analysis of the industry and helps provide the reader with more in-depth information than most other sources.

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 the 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 itself.  Furthermore, according to Kay, the airline industry is one of them of these global industries that are promoted by governments across the globe.  However, the problem with such industries is that even though they receive subsidies from the government, they can be 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 is recognized to be very trustworthy for its articles on business topics.  The authors of the Times tend to do very in-depth reporting and provide sound research, of which Kay provides the same service to his readers.

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.

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 that are of primary importance for the airline companies.  Those areas include attracting customers, managing the fleet, managing the people, and managing the finances.  This article is useful because it does not simply describe factors of success, but more importantly examines these factors as they related to the eight largest U.S. airlines.

This article appears to be credible because McCabe has received a Ph.D. from Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University and has spent much of his career researching and reporting on the airline industry and other financial topics.

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

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

This book is almost like a dictionary that includes information about all aspects of the commercial air transport.  The major important factor about this 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 with the cargo (goods transportation) airlines.  Another important key element that this book provides is information on the airline industry from the aviation, business, and history perspectives.

This source is reliable because it simply gives historical and statistical insight into the development and operation of airline industry since the time of its origin, and it does not include any biases or opinions.  This book states the facts and provides factual information on the major air transportation companies around the world.  Moreover, the Cornell’s University School of Hotel Administration offers it to its students as a credible source for research and reading information.

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).

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

This article presents the biggest problems that the airline industry is currently facing, which are the existence of 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, consequently, the airlines’ clients.  The article describes various alternative fuels that aviation industry can use, discussing pros and cons of every one of them.

This article is a peer-reviewed resource that has been substantiated by other professionals in the academic and corporate communities.  Strahan provides factual information to legitimize the conclusions on these issues, and this article serves as a very strong resource for research in this area.

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.

Zinnov, LLC. (2007, January). Global Aviation Markets – Analysis. Retrieved July 24, 2009, from Web site: 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.

Much of the information presented within this research is presented in the form of factual tables, charts and graphs.  This provides much greater understanding for the reader when visualizing the comparisons of multiple factors on the aviation industry.  This information has been previously sited by other academic professionals and is viewed as a legitimate source for quality information that can be used for the basis of further research and to draw quality conclusions from.

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