Simpli-Flying: Optimizing the Airline Business Model

The airline industry is in a state of radical restructuring as its markets and key stakeholders (customers, airline labour and management groups, governments, and the financial community) adjust to the new aviation realities. Airline executives can be forgiven for being overwhelmed by technology proliferation, zestful new paradigm airlines, September 2001, business cycles, Iraq, SARS, and animal diseases. The leadership challenge for all carriers is now to select and execute appropriate business models, thinking both 'inside' and 'outside' the 'box', to turn conventional wisdom upside down to achieve dramatic increases in productivity. Some legacy carriers still need to create an effective strategy for much larger cycles that encompass major discontinuities. Burdened by past decisions, they are forced to fight with one hand tied behind their back to 'convert volume to value', to survive and prosper. Some new airlines have been at the forefront of shaping change, developing a vision of the mass-market, assessing the customer value of their core processes, and using a 'back-to-basics' business approach. Both groups should take a sideways glance at what works in other industries and implement those insights into actions. Written by an experienced airline business strategist and international in scope, this wide-ranging book identifies challenges and problems, presents comprehensive analyses and suggests some solutions. The author identifies the new realities and the obstacles to change, the need to revitalize product development and renew the customer experience. He deals with public policy and the need to revise supplier relationships, especially with aircraft maintenance providers, and looks at successes and failures in other industries. This is rounded off with a clarion call to governments, labour unions, airports, manufacturers, suppliers and above all airline management, to shake off the past, and to address the challenges and opportunities. His approach is to provide impartial analysis and pragmatic insights into vital enablers of change, potential business models, execution strategy, ways to make stakeholders more influential, wisdom from other businesses, and to present scenarios to make busy executives stop and think. The readership includes the broadest cross-section of practitioners in the global airline and related industries, as well as those affected by the industry and seeking a deeper understanding of it. This includes government civil aviation departments, the aviation divisions of the financial community (investment banks and leasing companies), aircraft manufacturers and their suppliers, airports, information technology companies, as well as customers and other stakeholders.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Adapt decisively to the changing aviation marketplace; Select competitive and stakeholder-aligned business models; Create value with a brand; Grasp insights from other businesses; Transform supplier relationships; Prepare for major transformation: the unthinkable is now thinkable; Final thoughts; Index; About the author.

About the Author :
Nawal Taneja is an experienced airline business strategist and the author of two recent books on the airline industry: Airline Survival Kit (2003) and Driving Airline Business Strategies through Emerging Technology (2002).

Review :
’Simpli-Flying makes for exciting reading. It points to a whole new way of doing business for the aviation industry, and those who get it right will emerge leaner and stronger, ready to take advantage of the enormous opportunities opening up.’ Kanok Abhiradee, President, Thai Airways International Public Company Limited ’...provides the best contemporary overview of Commercial Aviation...a highly readable and easily digestible "must read" for senior Airline Managers.’ Ralph Norris, Managing Director and Chief Executive, Air New Zealand ’...(this book) reminds us over and over not to complicate the business and resist strategies that do not add value to the customer...Simpli-Flying provides good reminders for carrying out this year’s business plan and ways for assessing future strategies...’ Robert Fornaro, President and C.O.O, AirTran Airways ’Legacy carriers can no longer be complacent with their business models or ignore the implications of the permanence of this new, low-cost paradigm in the aviation industry...In Simpli-Flying, author Nawal Taneja analyzes and discusses this changing marketplace and the challenges legacy carriers face, exposing many of the systemic problems management and labor have failed to resolve...’ Captain John Darrah, President, Allied Pilots Association ’Simpli-Flying is not just another book on the airline industry, its challenges and trends. It is a serious book with pragmatic insights on how some carriers can reinvent themselves in order to survive...Airline practitioners and others interested in the airline business will find this book valuable - and definitely a worthwhile read.’ Tony Fernandes, Chief Executive Officer, AirAsia ’Simpli-Flying: Because the alternative is "Compl-Exit."’ Dr. Dietmar Kirchner, Senior Vice President, Corporate Sourcing, Deutsche Lufthansa AG '...comprehensive analyses and suggestions that will make busy airline executives stop and think.' Airport Magazine July 2004 'Jus