Aegean Airlines Choosing the Best Business Strategy
Aegean Airlines is part of the limited Star Alliance organization, giving it both insight and influence regarding the ongoing events in the industry and international travel (United, n.d.). Aegean is Greek’s national flag carrier, establishing support from the country’s government and advantages in priority over other domestic market entrants (CFA Institute, 2015). The airline consistently analyzes its routes and fleet composition, focusing on the regional (EU and Middle East) flights rather than attempting to enter long-term hauls. The low-fare, high quality approach taken by Aegean places it in a unique category where competition is relatively small but intense (particularly with Ryanair), but allows for deeper analysis of competition (Kontoravdis, 2019). Aegean focuses on remaining profitable, both in short and long term, avoiding the desperate attempts of competitors to undercut prices only to go bankrupt (as exemplified by multiple regional airlines) – the profitability planning provides it insight into the long-term forecasts of the industry (Newton, 2021). Finally, Aegean is rapidly embracing full digitization and technological solutions that provide critical data and analytics for the airline, increasing accuracy of environmental scanning (Katsoni & Poulaki, 2021).
The best strategy for Aegean Airlines to remain a competitive player in the industry is a reliance on digital technologies. This has become a critical point for airlines, at each point from customer registration and ticket purchasing to back-end planning and distribution, embracing the technological innovation is vital for future competitive advantage (Amadeus, 2020). Building on this, Aegean can take the advantages of big data analytics which can help transform and improve airlines. Due to the automation and detail provided by data, performance measurements can be viewed, compared to industry, and improved from the small details to large changes (Panicker, 2020) Aegean is known for its high-quality of service at an affordable price; this should remain a strong marketing point in the context of the industry where many airlines are seeing strong customer dissatisfaction and cutting costs on consumers (Kapralos & Bofylatos, 2015). Overall, Aegean should focus on capitalizing on its strengths and evolving structures to achieve competitive advantage.
Reference List
Amadeus. (2015) Embracing airline digital transformation. Web.
CFA Institute. (2015) CFA institute research challenge. Web.
Kapralos, L & Bofylatos, S. (2015) “A increasing customer satisfaction and brand differentiation through service design, a case study in the airline sector.” 11th European Academy of Design Conference. Web.
Katsoni, V. & Poulaki, I. (2021) “Digital evolution and emerging revenue management practices: evidence from Aegean airlines distribution channels.” Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology.
Kontoravdis, M. (2019) Conversation with the CEO: An in-depth look at Aegean Airlines. Web.
Newton, G. (2021) ‘Dimitris Gerogiannis, CEO, Aegean Airlines: Expect the unexpected’, Airlines IATA, Web.
Panicker, M. (2020) Data analytics is key for driving Airline industry transformation. Web.
United. (n.d.) Aegean Airlines. Web.