Arabic Airlines in the European Market. Strategies, Consequences and International Market Changes and Challenges

Master's Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,7, University of Applied Sciences Essen, course: Business Administration, language: English, abstract: In this master thesis, the subject 'Arabic Airlines in the European Market - Strategies, Consequences and International Market Changes and Challenges' is accurately represented and analyzed by the author, whereby different methods are used. The aim of this work is to show the extent to which Arab companies have changed the European airline market in recent years, including the opportunities, possibilities and risks that arise for European and Arab companies. For this purpose, the ten largest companies in the European and Arab market are briefly presented and compared with all key business data. In the Arab market, this includes Qatar Airways, Emirates, Etihad Air-ways, Oman Air, and Saudi Arabic airlines, Gulf Air, Royal Jordanian Airlines, Fly Dubai, Air Arabia and Middle East Airlines. In the European market, the following companies are considered in more detail: Turkish Airlines, Lufthansa, Swiss Int'l Air Lines, British Airways, Austrian Airlines, Air France, Aegean Airlines, KLM, Virgin Atlantic and Finnair. With the help of Porter's five forces, first the Arabic airlines are analyzed, being closely examined in the following areas: threat of new entrants, threat of substitute products or services, bargaining power of customers, bargaining power of suppliers and intensity of competitive rivalry. Subsequently, the European market is analyzed based upon globalization drivers developed by George Yip. The distinction is made based upon the following points: market drivers, cost drivers, government drivers and competitive drivers. The results of these investigations highlight that the Arab companies are still very young on the market, only existing on the market for a maximum of a few decades. By contrast, European companies have already been present on the market for much longer. However, the Arabian airlines have very quickly gained enormous market power and large market shares, backed by the vast financial reserves of state-owned enterprises. These companies not only have the financial background that reflects a great advantage over all other international airlines, but also other important advantages that favor a growth in the market. [...]