Assignment task: "Competition in the U.S. Airline Industry" and answer the following Case Discussion Questions:
1. Was the flood of new entrants into the airline industry that followed deregulation in 1978 good for customers? Was it good for the airlines?
2. Apart from government regulations, what are the other barriers to entry into the U.S. airline industry? How have these entry barriers changed over time? To what extent have these entry barriers been shaped by the strategy of the airlines themselves?
3. Why do you think it took the legacy airlines so long to adjust to the entry of low-cost carriers such as Southwest and Jet Blue?
4. What does this case tell you about the role of strategy in (a) changing the competitive structure of an industry and (b) enterprise success and failure?
5. What events trigger price wars in this industry? What is it about the structure of this industry that results in periods of intense price competition? What can the airlines do strategically to avoid future price wars?