USAirways Group
MKT302.04
Nicholas Barnard
Jeremy Traxler
October 9, 2002
To regain our competitive edge, and ensure the successful emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection we feel US Airways Group should invest in a comprehensive process of understanding who we are, what we do well, what we do we poorly, learning where the next profitable routes will be, explore ways to improve the profitability of our existing network, knowing who our customers are today, and who our future customers will be. In addition, we have stronger competitors that must be probed for weaknesses. Furthermore we should invest significant resources into understanding the innovations of our competitors and how they affect our business, and identify innovations that can be incorporated into USAirways Group's business practices.
We believe for any plan to be effective it must be a company-wide effort involving all employees. To this end we will leverage existing internal marketing channels to ensure that our employees are knowledgeable of our plans, in an intelligent informed way. In addition we will encourage employee feedback and input on our business processes, by setting up several suggestion review boards that meet either online or in person at mutually agreeable times.
At the management level we will distribute detailed strategic competitive intelligence reports, and our office will periodically follow up with all management levels to ensure that the intelligence is useful and is being utilized.
We believe in order for USAirways Group to be competitive in the future we must bring our cost structure in line with those of our competitors. Southwest Airlines, an admired competitor, had a cost structure that is 69% lower per seat mile than USAirways Group. In addition JetBlue and upstart competitor is gaining ground with a strategy similar to Southwest's. In addition we should look towards higher service carriers such as Delta for ways to improve our service without destroying our cost structure.
Southwest Sets Standard on Costs for Airlines, October 9, 2002 <http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/021009/0149000055_3.html>