Air Canada Airlines Case Study

Air Canada

Sedigheh Ziaei (Dorri)/1711036

University Canada West

Professor: Bruce Hiebert Ph.D.

MBAF 503: Business Fundamentals

December 2017

Air Canada

 Air Canada is the largest airline doing the service both domestically and internationally in Canada. It serves more than 200 airports all over the world. Its fleet contains 390 aircrafts which are environmentally-friendly, young, and fuel efficient (Air Canada, 2017).

 According to the 2016 annual report on Air Canada company, the airline operates approximately 1570 scheduled flights to more than 200 destinations on around 400 routes per day. It serves close to 45 million customers with about 30000 employees. It is the largest passenger airline in Canada and among the world's 20 biggest commercial airlines by traffic. The headquarters are in Montreal and is governed professionally by 12-member board with a high-standard code of conduct. In 2016, the annual report revealed a net income of $876 million, the liquidity of $3.4 billion, operating expense of $13.3 billion, and operating revenue of $14.7 billion. Initially, in 1937, Air Canada was established and owned by the government of Canada to offer services for Canadians. However, the organization was totally privatized though selling shares publicly by 1989 (Air Canada, 2016).

Current technological changes have resulted in new planes, full flights, and less service. the airline industry has been affected tremendously by five recent changes including bigger, better jets, fuller flights, slack service, credit cards on flights, and the paperless world. 37 Boeing 787 Dreamliners were purchased by Air Canada Company to provide a smoother ride for the 300 passengers on the board. These jets are lighter, more fuel efficient, and quieter. They can carry more cargo as well. Moreover, the company is trying to use fewer flights but full planes by adding as many routes and flights as possible. As a result, unfortunately, a couple of complaints have been received currently from people about everything. Bruce Cram, the president of the Consumers’ Association of Canada (CAC) and a frequent flyer himself, says the service on airplanes is getting “less and less acceptable,” for many Canadians. The ability to pay for the meals or an emergency aisle seat in the sky by credit cards and to use a variety of apps to updated flight status has also opened up (CBC News, 2014).

Air Canada company has enormously evolved globally during these days. This progress leading to bigger air route networks provides the company with a wide range of opportunities for growth. Air Canada is cooperating with Air India, Air Jamaica, Air Liberete, All Nippon Airways, Austrian Airlines, CSA, Finnair, LOT Polish Airlines, Pakistan International Airlines, Royal Jordanian Airlines, Sabena, Singapore Airlines, VIASA, and a large number of other airlines. It also established an alliance with United Airlines in 1993 (Madore and et al., 1993).

A business analysis concentrating on airline AIR Canada’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities for improvement, and threats to the company in 2014 has shown that: strengths are the profits of improving brand image due to the powerful market position. Weaknesses are the unappealing aspect of legal affairs on its reputation. Worldwide market for goods being shipped by the company is considered as its opportunities. Threats include variation in fuel prices having an undesirable impact on profit analysis (Air Canada swot Analysis, 2014).

As long as I am concerned, Air Canada is doing quite well as it keeps a relative stability during a long period of time. The key priorities of Air Canada airline are composed of four primary strategies on which it is focusing to become the best global airline. The strategies include culture advance, customer involvement, international progress, and revenue augmentation and cost alternation. However, the company encounters difficulties as it works to preserve a sustainable profit in the long run. For this reason, the airline pursues to build up and boost strengths, sort out weaknesses, be aware of and concentrate far more on threads, and seize opportunities. The analysis of Air Canada’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threads are presented below to clarify the variety of conceptual facts.