Introduction To South African Airlines

South African Airlines was founded in 1934 and since then the airline has earned a good reputation in the aviation industry. The airline is a South African national airline and the headquarters of the airline are in Johannesburg, South Africa. The hubs of the airline are in OR Tambo Int'l Airport and at Cape Town International Airport. The frequent flyer program that is offered by the airline is Voyager. The airline has also its own member lounge, which can be accessed through the Voyage program mentioned above and it is considered as the world class lounge and is named as Cycad/Baobab Lounge. The airline is currently targeting 35 destinations and key people of the airline include Khaya Ngqula as CEO and Kaushik Patel as CFO. The website of the airline at official level is flysaa.com and the airline gives a platform through this website to the customers of the airline to come and get information online. You can also name the airline as Afrikaans as Suid-Afrikaanse Lugdiens (SAL).

Why South African Airline?

There come two important points about the airline which can be considered as the core competency for the airline. Basically the core competency is the quality or the set of the qualities which a company has to get the competitive advantage over the competitors. The airline has the competitive advantage that it is among the few earlier entrants in the airline industry and in South Africa it has the first mover advantage. Secondly, the airline has the best services which are provided in its flights and will be discussed later on.

The idea of core competency is very dynamic and same concept is being followed by the airline. Airline throughout its existence has realized that it can progress in the airline industry only if the airline takes care of the intense competition in the market. With time the airline companies have to change the idea and the services and have to come up with some new and more innovative ideas which are known as the core competencies and which also give the competitive advantage to the companies. For South African Airlines there have been different core competencies. One of the advantage for the airline is that it has taken the direct flights from South Africa to the cities like New York City, Washington, D.C., London, Frankfurt, Mumbai, Hong Kong and many others. Moreover, the people in South Africa usually travel on all of these routes through their national airline and this increases the profitability for the airline. If by just looking at the figure of the destinations targeted by the airline you feel the airline as a small airline then you are suffering from misconception because the airline is targeting the main and the most demanding routes. The airline is not only providing the passenger services but it is also providing the cargo services which is another advantage for the profitability of the company and profitability is the ultimate aim of any company.

There are very few accidents in the history of the airline which also proves that the airline is taking care of all of the services which it provides to its customers. Throughout its creation the airline has practiced to get more market shares in the aviation industry and in doing such practice once the airline has also suffered from the issue of anti-competitive campaign. The airline for increasing its sales paid the extra commission to the travel agents and because of complains made by the other airlines again the company made the penalty against the airline. No doubt, the airline faced the reality and then again continued its operations with more enthusiasm and improvement in its services.

This also supports the fact that the airline is providing the quality services to the customers and through the services the airline can increase the customer base for itself, if it also increases its networking. The airline needs to strategically look over the intense competition in the airline industry that is based on the expansion of the airlines on the basis of the new routes.