New airline concepts

      1) Describe two new airline business model concepts that are discussed in this article (excluding Norwegian).

One concept is that of taking an airplane and having only business class seats on board.  Although there are less overall seats, each customer gets more room and pays more for seats compared to economy seats.  Another concept is ultra-low-cost carriers, which is where airlines charge cheaper seats and add additional costs to customers based on what they would like, such as checked baggage, assigned seating. 

2) Do a little research and discuss two airlines (an airline for each concept) that are embracing these concepts. Give basic details of the airline, such as location, bases, destinations, equipment, etc.

Wizz Air is an ultra-low-cost airline concept.  They are based in hungry and operate into airports all over Europe among other places.  Wizz airline currently operates the Airbus A320 exclusively.  Their fleet is fairly new.

Business class airlines have come and gone in the past few years.  Eos airlines was one such airlines that operated Boeing 757s in business class configuration.  They went out of business in 2008.  They flew routes that were between London and New York City.  They expanded that service to include other cities on the East Coast.

3) Compare and contrast the two business models that you discussed. Which one do you think will be more successful? Why?

I believe that the Ultra-low-cost business model works better.  Even though it is less seats for the business class airlines to fill per flight, they rely solely on passengers paying for more expensive seats on an airline that has limited routes.  Even with more airlines charging for services like the ultra-low cost airlines do, passengers continue to pay these additional fees to get cheaper tickets to their destination. 

4) Discuss the global impact of these airlines? How will there innovative business ideas impact the overall global industry?

I think these concepts will have a positive impact on the industry.  It will force existing airlines to evaluate their current practices and see if they need to change anything to keep up with these new airline concepts.  The thing I hate seeing with these new airlines is when they do stop operations, most due to financial trouble, they often shut down operations with no advanced warning.  This often times strands many passengers away from home with no option but to buy a ticket at the last minute at an expensive price. 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101763454#.