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Essays

During the 1990s, none of the five largest air carriers in the US earned its costs of capital. Despite these challenges, airlines like Southwest and JetBlue earned enviable returns. How? An airline can be quite expensive for its owners. Aside from fuel, there is also airplane maintenance, and the number of seats that need to be filled. Airlines make profit by flying frequently, by filling all these seats, and by using less fuel. By sacrificing on other items, such as meals and seat assignments, Southwest set its prices very low, competing with the cost of auto travel rather than other airplanes' fares. Moreover their pricing structure was simple and relatively transparent to passengers, with few classes of fares and few ticket reservations. They were able to do this due to providing frequent point-to-point service between secondary airports that were on average only 515 miles apart. They also focused on simplicity, on eradicating frills, and on high aircraft utilization. Jet Blue imitated Southwest with its combination of low costs, strong brand, and new technology. The Internet helped launch JetBlue since 60% of seats were booked online. Encouraging customers to interact with the airline via Internet made it easier for customers and airline as well as cutting costs inv various ways. Also here the fare structures were simple, and tickets (as they were with Southwest) were electronic. JetBlue's image too was cheap although it attracted a different market – the bankers, brokers, fashion models, and finance officers. This was where it carved its niche. These air carriers succeeded whereas the others failed largely due to their low-cost rates, but also - as compared to other imitators that too tried low cost but shuttered (such as CALite) - because they put their customers first and were truly low cost Why have all the low-cost subsidiaries of legacy airlines, including Delta Express failed? Other low cost subsidiary airlines were not truly low cost – their true expenses were hidden in their financials - and therefore they failed. As regards Delta Express, it attempted to cut costs with lower labor rates and higher aircraft utilizations. It also operated older Boeings and served only light snacks. However its maintenance overhaul gave it low apparent maintenance cost and fights for its profitability showed as CEO Leo Mullin said that "it was a bit of a delusion to say it was a low-cost carrier" (9). Furthermore, Delta was initially a high cost carrier and it would be difficult if not impossible for a high cost carrier to transform itself into a low-cost carrier even with their selling cheap seats and attempting to cut costs. Delta Express still managed their transaction via their parent airline being, intrinsically still, high-cost and, therefore, lost in profitability...

America had actively participated in two world wars, had suffered and despaired through a major depression, and had initiated a Cold War that would bring the entire world to the brink of destruction, a situation that…

China, Russia, and Mexico: Patterns of economic and political reform

The document discusses an article that compares worldwide data. The main topic is gun control laws and whether these have an effect on crime prevention. Surprisingly, the data show that countries with more stringent gun laws have higher violent crime, murder and suicide rates. The conclusion is that gun control laws achieve little beyond the violation of law abiding citizens' rights.

¶ … Wages of Crime: Black Markets, Illegal Finance, and the Underworld Economy, by Naylor, and also includes a review of an essay by Bagley (2003) entitled "Globalization, Weak States and International Organized Crime."

Some say that world politics is all about power. What do you think about this idea? Are there elements of international relations that are not about power? What might these be?

The two-round electoral system is also known as second ballot or runoff voting. It requires the candidate in question to win a majority of the electorate. It is often used in countries with multiparty systems, as the…

Managing customer expectations within the services industry has as its catalyst the transformation of intangible benefits into tangible experiences for the customer. Marriott Corporations' approach to transforming…

A Comparison of Comedy in Two Plays by Anton Chekov: The Seagull and the Cherry Orchard

The local cooperation among various countries in the region is affected by the political and territorial issues. However the regional cooperation organizations are working on the initiatives to share their knowledge and expertise to develop a mechanism for energy cooperation. The East Asian Summit and ASEAN have also taken various initiatives to work with the member countries in developing local energy sustainability. The initiatives are also focused on working together to highlight the renewable energy corridors as well as energy conservation programs.