Usair - British Airways Alliance
1. INTRODUCTION
This report documents work carried out in the course of a team project concerning the case study: “British Airways – USAir: Structuring a Global Strategic Alliance”. The project fulfills partial requirements of the Strategic Management course of Harvard Summer School and has been completed by a team of two students.
The case is about alliance of two airline companies, namely British Airways and USAir. In this case, we are focused on investigating the alliance process in detail by using strategic management tools and techniques. All relevant data to carry out the case study are provided in the case document.
The report includes four main parts. In the first part of the report mentions about the backgrounds and historical developments of the two firms.
In the second part of the report presents the issues and problems faced by the companies and explains why the problem has emerged.
The third part of the report investigates the strategic approaches of the firms to the problem and the obstacles they faced.
The last part of the report presents alternative courses of actions and recommendations made for the British Airways – USAir alliance and concludes our project. BACKGROUNDS AND HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF THE COMPANIES British Airways PLC
The company first founded in 1923 as a national airline and named as Imperial Air Transport which aimed to connect the countries of British Empire and by 1936 it achieved its primary goal. However, in 1935 three small airlines merged to form British Airways and this constituted a threat to Imperial. Then, British Parliament offered that two merge and in 1939, British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) was formed. In 1972, it was merged with its sister carrier, British European Airways and in 1974 two were renamed as British Airway Group (BA). In the 1980s the company was privatized and went through a renewal process including change in top managers, workforce level, new colors and logo and new
This report documents work carried out in the course of a team project concerning the case study: “British Airways – USAir: Structuring a Global Strategic Alliance”. The project fulfills partial requirements of the Strategic Management course of Harvard Summer School and has been completed by a team of two students.
The case is about alliance of two airline companies, namely British Airways and USAir. In this case, we are focused on investigating the alliance process in detail by using strategic management tools and techniques. All relevant data to carry out the case study are provided in the case document.
The report includes four main parts. In the first part of the report mentions about the backgrounds and historical developments of the two firms.
In the second part of the report presents the issues and problems faced by the companies and explains why the problem has emerged.
The third part of the report investigates the strategic approaches of the firms to the problem and the obstacles they faced.
The last part of the report presents alternative courses of actions and recommendations made for the British Airways – USAir alliance and concludes our project. BACKGROUNDS AND HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF THE COMPANIES British Airways PLC
The company first founded in 1923 as a national airline and named as Imperial Air Transport which aimed to connect the countries of British Empire and by 1936 it achieved its primary goal. However, in 1935 three small airlines merged to form British Airways and this constituted a threat to Imperial. Then, British Parliament offered that two merge and in 1939, British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) was formed. In 1972, it was merged with its sister carrier, British European Airways and in 1974 two were renamed as British Airway Group (BA). In the 1980s the company was privatized and went through a renewal process including change in top managers, workforce level, new colors and logo and new