Air Canada's Business Case Study

Canadian based airline may find it hard to find strong support from US and International customers

Air Canada is Canada 's largest full-service airline and the largest provider of scheduled passenger services in the Canadian market, the Canada-U.S. trans-border market and in the international market to and from Canada. In 2010, Air Canada improved its reputation as one of the world’s leading international air carriers. Significant progress was made on executing and delivering on its four key priorities and this, coupled with improving economic conditions, allowed Air Canada to record operating income of $407 million in 2010, a $677 million improvement from 2009. Air Canada’s financial strategy is to continue to improve both the level and sustainability of its

"In 2014, Air Canada achieved its best full year financial performance in the Corporation 's 77-year history," said Calin Rovinescu, President and Chief Executive Officer. (Air Canada Website CIO 2015) Adjusted net income was $531 million, representing an increase of 56.2 per cent year-over-year.” The purpose of this paper is to examine how Air Canada in 2011 successfully aligned their business strategy and Information Technology (IT) by managing information resources on several levels to accomplish a competitive advantage over other airline carriers and gain the attention of their customers through innovation. Finally, this paper will address suggestions to achieve better Business-IT alignment to meet Air Canada’s goals for the future and continued success.

Air Canada has been in the business of air transport for an extended period of time. Due to the experience and the exposure of the carrier in the field, it has made a commendable progress through many strategies as well as customer proximity. One of the approaches taken by the airline involves the identification as well as an implementation of cost reduction initiatives in a bid to increase revenue from its operations (Air Canada, 2016). It is also attempting to connect with the existing carriers across the world to connect the current customers to the international world. This approach has been adopted to increase its competitive advantage over other existing airlines.

However, despite the correct decision to privatize, the company continued to have troubles. The financials of the newly privatized airline were unreflective of the successful stock offerings. “Air Canada reported losses of C$74 million in 1990 and C$218 million in 1991, and it reported that it had nearly two million fewer passengers in 1991 than in the previous year.” These failures were blamed on the effects of the economic recession and the decrease in travel due to the war in the Persian Gulf. However, it was clear that competition with international carriers was a major cause. To elaborate, the airline industry is considered to be a cyclical industry, meaning that it is directly affected by the business cycle. As such, during times of

Air Canada arranges a proactive strategic procurement plan to obtain different goods and services that are vital and fundamental for company growth. These strategies are based on analysis of their historical spending and on educated forecasting of requirements and opportunities. Air Canada is able to create and improve important relationships with key strategical suppliers due to their pronounced buying volume allowing them to acquire greater leverage.

Along with being known as Quebec’s “crowned jewel”() bombardier has made itself a name throughout the country since it was first founded in 1942.() Even though its popularity made it easy for Bombardier to launch such an ambitious plan as the C-Series, many Quebec taxpayers are wondering if it is worth continuing to invest into their beloved gem. Bombardier shares have fallen drastically over the last year as they announce that they are accumulating more and more debt. Their one year return is looking dreadful with a whopping -60.88%. If the situation couldn’t seem worse for investors, professionals say that “there are not seeing profitability in the C-Series until 2020.” () Also, whilst Bombardier’s C-Series has been falling behind schedule, Boeing and airbus have interpreted this as a chance to a “head start” and have begun fitting their older aircrafts with newer engines so they could sell mass amounts of their “new”

WestJet develop their IT operation early and force them get the lead in the aviation businesses. However, as the global economic and the change of people’s demand, the strategic plan of WestJet need to be change to follow the change of the world. Compare with other aviation business, the IT structure of WestJet is small and keeps running on their pervious operation before Smith join into the organization. There are some risks coming out if WestJet continue these IT operations.

For instance, Canada's federal government has delegated the responsibility for airports to local authorities. As a result, many Canadian airports have transformed into brighter, cleaner, and more modern facilities that have become more expensive to operate 3. Canada’s airports have spent more than $9.5 billion on improvements since 19922. According to the CEO of Transat A.T. Inc, “it costs three times as much for an airline to land in Pearson Airport in Toronto as at Charles-de-Gaulle in Paris” 2. Such high landing fees have made Pearson and other major Canadian airports less desirable landing destinations; increasing costs for airlines, and as a result, often increasing prices for consumers. Pearson Airport is West Jet’s “second-largest hub and main connection point in Eastern Canada” and almost half of its destinations are to Canadian airports2, Such high costs of landing in major Canadian cities require that WestJet finds more ways to cut costs and remain the cost leader in its industry.

Rising fuel prices has a huge impact on the airline industry. In an article published by the New York Times in 2007, oil prices were hovering ‘near $100 a barrel’ which caused the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to ‘slash’ their predicted profits for 2008 from ‘$7.8 billion to $5 billion’ (Clark, 2007). In 2008 high fuel prices were ‘dominant factor’ in the losses that faced the industry, and continued to same effect in 2009 (Dunn, 2009). Diagram 2 shows how fuel price has increased and fallen over the last 5 years.

This was evident with the purchase of Canadian Airlines, in 1999 (The National, 2003). With the purchase of this airline, Air Canada also inherited their estimated eight billion dollar debt (The National, 2003). Also inherited from the merger, were underappreciated employees and under trained employees who lacked morale (The National, 2003). In 2003, Air Canada filed for bankruptcy (The National, 2003), this was due to the large financial deficit, the economy and the underappreciated/paid employees. Although, this was a difficult time for the airline, this truly marked the change in how the airline is structured. In 2005, it marked the true return of Air Canada, they reached record breaking revenues and far exceeded anyone’s expectation, including their own. Currently Air Canada, is the largest Canadian Airline, which has a lot to do with their change in business strategy.

Westjet Airlines has achieved considerable success in the past few years, winning estimable rewards related to its service, gaining loyal customers and, of course, increasing market shares. It devotes to a “high-value, low-fare airline” which provides humanized services to customers. Another pride of Westjet is its IT, which designs all systems in-house and is operated based on the business demands.

This paper will review the case study of Delta Airlines which was suffering like all its competitors with rising fuel costs which averaged anywhere between 30 to 50 percent of its total operating costs. This paper will answer six questions which will help identify what the company did to handle the high cost of fuel. The questions that I will answer will include the following.

Airlines use a formula of combining their yield and inventory costs to determine ticket prices. While it is imperative to focus on the idea of being profitable, the focus is to maximize the cost of the flight revenue. One huge factor that encourages an increase in the cost of tickets relates to a customer ordering a ticket close to the departing date, define this as a risk factor because they need to make up for all unsold seats. A high percentage of the revenue is dedicated to overhead costs such as fuel and labor. When a ticket price is higher with one airline than the other, the customer interprets this as being an excessive cost. The demand is greatly affected by the external market

Colin Rovinescu, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), for Air Canada was reviewing the Risk Management program of the company because the scheduled board meeting was approaching soon. He needed to deliver a comprehensive presentation in front of the board members.