Emirates Airlines operations and business model

Emirates

I have chosen several sources to provide me with information for my study of Emirates, the Dubai-based airline. The first source that I will discuss is Hoover's. This source is a business research firm, and it provides to its customer profiles on different companies. Hoover's provides a fairly comprehensive overview. Given that Emirates is not a publicly-traded company, finding accurate information about the company requires the use of a source like this to provide an overview of the business and key statistics. The Hoover's report is an excellent starting point for my analysis. Supplementing this information is data and knowledge that is presented on the Emirates website. The website is, admittedly, a biased source but it is a rich source that provides a lot of basic information about the company.

To enhance the paper, it is necessary to supplement the analysis with recent information that is relevant to the organization. These third party sources carry with them a wide variety of perspectives, but most news organizations strive for neutrality in their reporting. The three third-party sources that I used were from media outlets MSNBC, Trip Atlas and Ad Week. These sources all provide different pieces of information that help me to form a complete picture of what Emirates Airline is all about. There is information provided about its operations and its marketing plans, in these articles, and this puts the company's operations into some perspective. These sources often contain snippets of valuable information and are therefore useful in this context of trying to understand the company better.

Literature Review

"Emirates company information. " Hoovers. [27 Mar 2013]

http://www.hoovers.com/company-information/cs/company-profile.Emirates.19d67680068f3d9b.html

These sources provide useful information about the company as a company profile. Hoover's is an unbiased source that compiles this information for commercial purposes. Its business relies on it being a reliable source of accurate information, and that makes Hoover's a natural starting point for the literature review. There are few other similar sources with which to compare. There are a few similar services in existence, all equally good. Hoover's has less biased than other comprehensive sources like the company itself. The contents of this source are therefore quite useful and have provided me with a baseline understanding of the company, its operations and its issues.

Emirates airline. Official website. [27 Mar 2013]

http://www.emirates.com/us/English/index.aspx?cid=GoogleSEMUSSearch&d=CMGgpOPonLYCFcqd4AoddA4Aqg

The proverbial horse's mouth, the company websites provides a lot of information about the company and its operations, and its history. There are significant contextual issues that can be revealed from gathering information on the company's website. The site is inherently biased, but there are facts presented and it is these that should be the focal point of research from the company website.

Gialo, Diana. "Where luxury and flying go hand-in-hand." MXNBC. [15 Mar 2013]

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39639344/ns/travel-business_travel/#.UVLTklesf5M

This report on the company in the media highlights some of the in-flight features that highlight the premium positioning of the airline. These features not only make for compelling narrative, but they are compared with similar features on other premium airlines. This helps me to get a better understanding of the company's positioning in the market.

Henry, Lori. "Emirates Airline redefines food." Trip Atlas. 12 Jan 2013. [15 Mar 2013]

http://tripatlas.com/guides/Middle_East/2498/Emirates_Airline_Redefines_Airplane_Food

This source outlines some of the food offerings of Emirates. Again, its value lies in the ability to compare Emirates with its immediate competitors on the different elements of the service offering. This is important for understanding the company's positioning in the market.

Klara, Robert. "When airlines all look alike, what's a marketer to do?" Ad Week. [15 Mar 2013]

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/when-airlines-all-look-alike-whats-marketer-do-147803

This article highlights some of the marketing strategies that airlines use, including Emirates. The value again lies not only in the information that is provided which sheds light on how Emirates runs its business, but also on the ability to compare the competitive position of Emirates with that of other airlines.

Synthesis

The sources that I have chosen can be put together to form a clear picture of what type of airline Emirates is and how well it runs its business. The sources contain both background information about the airline and relevant details about its marketing strategy. The more we know about the company's product and marketing strategies, the better research questions we can come up with.

In this case, it has been determined that the survey will touch on a number of product and service issues that contribute to an airline's reputation as a luxury provider in the industry. These sources do an excellent job contributing to the research paper in two ways. The first is that they provide information that can be used to develop the questionnaire, in terms of what attributes customers look for, especially in a luxury airline.

The second way that these sources contribute to the research paper is that they provide the necessary background information about the industry to frame the paper. By understanding the context of the airline business, the ability to understand the survey results will be enhanced. This in turn will result in stronger interpretation of the results and therefor more value for the reader. The insights will be superior with the better framing and better questions that derive from this literature.