Traditionella flygbolags åtgärder efter lågprisflygets inträde på marknaden En fallstudie av SAS & Finnair

The de-regulation of commercial air traffic in the early 1990’s lead to that many new airline companies entered the market. Many of these new actors were low budget airlines which meant that the traditional airlines met a new type of competition. This situation contributed to the fact that ticket prices dropped in many countries. It has become more and more common that the traveller prefers to fly with low budget airlines rather than with the traditional airlines. That this is causing a major problem becomes quite evident when reading about their economic losses as they appear in the reports handed in by many of the worldwide traditional airline companies in the last few years. This essay deals with the effects that resulted among the traditional airline companies from the entrance of low budget airlines. The purpose was to examine what issues the traditional airlines actively had to meet in order to stay competitive. We were also interested in finding out what measures they actually had taken. This essay is based on a qualitative method, a casestudy in the form of deep interviews. The objects of the study chosen were persons working for the airline companies SAS and Finnair. The bases for the study are theories about competitive strategies, positioning, quality of service, marketing mix and segmentation. In the light of these theories we put together sufficient questions to ask at the interviews to ensure a solid result that answered the purpose and problem of this essay. The result of the study showed that both SAS and Finnair at all times work in a number of ways to adjust themselves to the current market situation. The results clearly shows that both SAS and Finnair have been forced to adapt to the changes in the price development to remain competitive. The most noticeable measure implemented by SAS and Finnair is that they have lowered their ticket prices in order to maintain their customers. Our conclusion states that the effects that has resulted among the traditional airlines are changes of their pricing and quality of service. Even positioning and the competitive strategies of the companies have been affected. Avregleringen av flygmarknaden i början av 1990-talet ledde till att många flygbolag äntrade marknaden. Många av dessa nya aktörer är lågprisflygbolag vilket har lett till en ökad konkurrens mot de traditionella flygbolagen. Denna situation har även bidragit till att biljettpriserna har sjunkit i många länder. Det blir allt vanligare att res