Classic Airlines and Marketing

As stated in the Scenario, Classic Airlines is the world's fifth largest airline. In 25 years, the company has grown tremendously and has gained considerable market share. However, unfortunately, due to the recent economic crisis, Classis Airlines, as with all other airlines, has been losing market share and has been under scrutiny from all sectors. That type of scrutiny has led to the lost of valuable customers for the airline. As a result, the company finds itself having to think from all corners in order to bring about the type of change needed that will revamp its image, motivate employees, strengthen existing customer's loyalty, and bring in new customers.

Some of the marketing concepts that Classic Airlines has been able to use or should use are:

A) A customer loyalty program called Classic Rewards-The program suffered a 19 percent decrease in the number of its members, and a 21 percent decrease in flights per remaining member. However, the article also mentions that just because there has been a decrease in customers flying with classic airlines doe not mean those customers are not flying. Meaning, most of them might most likely be using another airline.

B) Frequent customer surveys-Those surveys are specific to the airline and ask important questions that can assist the company in pinpointing the areas that need the most attention. The customer survey is a very important tool that will assist the organization in developing a new strategic path or in strengthening its existing strategies. For example, the survey questions which focused on the Classic Rewards membership show that most of the customers are not satisfied with the services that the program offers. This in itself is an indication that there are some things that the company should be offering, but is not offering to its external customers in order to retain them. Upon a look at the competitor's SWOT analysis, one can definitely see that their member loyalty is more successful than that of Classic's. Therefore, the company can begin to work on customer loyalty by revamping its Classic Rewards program in order to keep its existing customers happy rather than let them to the competitor because the latter has a better reward program.

C) Strengthen its global presence. It is clear that Classic Airlines wants to develop new marketing techniques that will enable it to maintain better competitiveness. One of the ways in which the company can accomplish this is by placing a stronger focus on its marketing efforts worldwide. As one can see upon the analysis of the competitors' SWOT analysis, Classic Airline's biggest competitors also have a great global presence. Therefore, it would be in the company's best interest to use those areas as opportunities for marketing and customer loyalty.

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