Global Market Overviews

16.1 GLOBAL MARKET OVERVIEWS

At the present moment, the global aviation industry is experiencing a great shift in market growth and penetration around the world. The United States of America along with many European nations were in the forefront of aviation success while Asia remained comparatively docile. Recent trends around the world are now showing that Asia is rapidly becoming a hot spot for aviation growth and many mature Western aviation markets are experiencing serious problems. The trend seen in the United States is that domestic airlines are experiencing financial problems and some have started filling for bankruptcy. The effects of the September 11th terrorist attacks are still rampant on many airlines and they are finding it harder to recover from these attacks. European airlines are struggling due to a very mature market and strong competition. The emergence of discount airlines around Europe have created a problem for existing airlines and market expansion is low in this region. The Middle East and Gulf regions are strictly regulated by their respective governments making expansion for new entrants there very tough. In the midst of all these problems, the Asian aviation industry has experienced a rapid growth.

16.2 PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE FOR QANTAS

As seen in the previous phase. Qantas has mainly focused market penetration in a few European countries but mainly the Australasian region. Qantas has benefited in this region because of government regulations which are prohibiting new entrants from using the same routes Qantas and a few other airlines use. Keeping this in mind, and recognizing current global aviation trends, it is easy to see that Qantas needs to concentrate its focus in Asia. The key question to ask is, where exactly in Asia and how?

16.3 INDIA VS. CHINA

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) as well as other aviation institutions are raving about the potentials of the aviation industry in these two countries. In order to decide which country to expand to and how, a comparison of pro's and con's is needed (refer to tables 12 & 13 below). We conducted this comparison on the basis of the overall theme of Qantas and current trends in the global aviation industry. Qantas has an Asian subsidiary airline called Jetstar Asia. Jetstar Asia is headquartered in Singapore and is a discount carrier airline. If Qantas were to enter into either India or China, we would adapt the same strategy as Jetstar Asia since it has proven to be successful for Qantas.

INDIA * * * * * Pro's Favorable government regulation Strong and stable economy Increasing middle and upper class Commonwealth member New market * * * Con's Poor Infrastructure Strong railroad network Existing Competition