Australian airlines among the world's most efficient
New research from the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies at the University of Sydney has revealed that Australia's major airlines, including Qantas and Virgin, are among the most efficient and resilient worldwide.聽
Australia鈥檚 major airlines are amongst the most efficient in the world and well positioned to manage fluctuations in the market and volatile oil prices, according to researchers at the University of Sydney Business School鈥檚 internationally respected (ITLS).
The researchers ranked Qantas in the top 20 of 150 airlines using a new formula to measure efficiency based passengers per number of aircraft, seat kilometres flown, fleet, staffing levels, perceived services levels and profitability.
鈥淨antas was near the top in all of the single efficiency measures that we established, so overall Qantas did quite well,鈥� said Associate Professor, . 鈥淰irgin Australia didn鈥檛 do as well but was still better than the average.鈥�
Dr Merkert said that the young age of the Qantas and Virgin fleets, uniformity in the type of aircraft flown and the number of aircraft in operation gave the two Australian airlines an advantage in unit costs and operational efficiency over many other carriers.
Australian airlines prepared for market fluctuations
He also said that the two airlines were not only amongst the safest airlines globally but were also well prepared to weather market and oil price fluctuations.
鈥淏oth engage in fuel hedging,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey also engage in foreign exchange hedging as quite a lot of their cost and debts are serviced in US dollars. They also hedge interest rates and to some extent cash flows.鈥�
The ITLS research also found that higher levels of customer service did not necessarily translate into greater profitability and nor do mergers that result in airlines that are too large.
鈥淚t was generally thought that a very high quality product would lead to repeat business, loyalty, higher yields and hence greater profits,鈥� Dr Merkert said.
鈥淗owever, Virgin America for many years was featuring very high in all quality rankings but never made much profits out of that exercise. At the other end of the spectrum you have Ryanair, providing a very low level of service but cheap fares and customers come back and they make huge profits.鈥�
鈥淥nce we were aware of this, the next step was to try to understand what really drives airline efficiency 鈥� or I should really say inefficiency 鈥� and what strategic measures airline management could take in order to improve that efficiency,鈥� Dr Merkert said.
Bigger airlines not always better
In a world of airline acquisitions and mergers, the ITLS also found that bigger is not necessarily better or more profitable.
鈥淯sually the result of a merger, such as the recent acquisition of Virgin America by Alaska Airlines, is positive. Capacity is taken out, synergies are leveraged and yields and profitability improve. 高清福利片 has shown, however, that airlines can actually become too big to operate efficiently. Once you get to a certain size, and we鈥檙e talking about 200 billion ASK (Available seat kilometre) you get airlines that actually experience dis-economies of scale such as the airline that resulted from the merger of US Airways and American,鈥� Dr Merkert explained.
Explaining the rational for the research, Dr Merkert said that the ITLS was 鈥渇ocused on helping firms and entire supply chains, to develope strategies and make decisions based on evidence and benchmark analysis which enhances their value proposition, competitive advantage and ultimately improve their profitability鈥�.
He concluded by saying that the formula used to measure airline performance could be used to analyse the efficiency and, therefore, improve the performance of any industry. ITLS researchers have already examined rail, bus and airport services.