On the Ground: Labor Struggle in the American Airline Industry

In order to cover this goal, four quality indexes related to the airline industry, and two economic performance. In order to cover this goal, four quality indexes related to the airline industry, and two economic performance indicators, revenues and return on investment (ROI), have been considered. Data from American airline companies from 2006 to 2013 have been used to determine if airlines’ profitability increases when service quality improves. Considering the effects on airlines’ profitability, the results confirm the positive and significant influence of service quality on the ROI of the US airline companies. A non-significant effect was found for airline revenues in relation to quality No previous research in this area has been done so these findings could encourage airline companies to invest in quality, since this policy can have a positive return on their profitability.

Download Full-text

Book Review: On the Ground: Labor Struggles in the American Airline Industry. By Liesl Miller Orenic. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009. 304 pp. $25 paper

Labor Studies Journal ◽

10.1177/0160449x10378118 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 35 (3) ◽

pp. 439-439

Author(s):

William A. Pelz

Keyword(s):

Airline Industry ◽

University Of Illinois ◽

American Airline

Download Full-text

Does Hedging Reduce Risk?

Journal of Business Strategies ◽

10.54155/jbs.32.1.1-20 ◽

1970 ◽

Vol 32 (1) ◽

pp. 1-20

Author(s):

Garland Simmons

Keyword(s):

Game Theory ◽

Data Analysis ◽

Airline Industry ◽

Null Hypothesis ◽

Jet Fuel ◽

Fuel Prices ◽

Reduce Risk ◽

American Airline ◽

Uncertain Future ◽

Fuel Costs

In this paper two approaches are applied to understand the hedging behaviorof companies which compete in the American airline industry (2007-2014) as theyseek to cope with the uncertain, future costs of jet fuel. The first measures the riskthat jet fuel prices will fall, a matter of concern to airlines that hedge against risingjet fuel prices, for when jet fuel prices fall, those airlines that have hedged losemoney on their hedges. The second describes the risk of hedging or not by usingsome of the tools of game theory. Two different cases are investigated. In the firstcase airlines compete against one another in a market structure where it is assumedthat whether one airline hedges is of no immediate concern to its rivals. In this firstcase hedging decisions of one airline produce no effects upon other airlines. In thesecond case airlines compete against one another in the context of an oligopoly.Hedging decisions of one airline are connected to the hedging decisions of otherairlines. If some airlines hedge jet fuel costs while at the same time others do not,winners and losers are created among the competing airlines. The problem here isthat while hedging can fix the price of jet fuel, it cannot guarantee that this fixedprice will be lower than the price paid by a rival that did not hedge. The last partof this paper is an empirical data analysis of the differences in jet fuel costs, net ofhedging results, is conducted. The null hypothesis that all airlines have equal jet fuelcosts after hedge results are accounted for could not be rejected at any reasonablelevel of confidence.

Download Full-text