S Airline industry. There was rapid expansion of fuel prices, which increased the operating costs of airlines. Slot restrictions caused by the walk-out of air traffic controllers in 1981 also posted a problem. The U.S recession resulted in a general weakness in air traffic. This is an indicator that the environment that airlines operate in is unstable. Economic upturns and downturns are expected. When the Airline Deregulation Act was passed in the United States on October 1978, the airline industry was faced with overcapacity and fare wars, and it was impossible to maintain. .
Successful airlines are market oriented airlines, which are well led with the best management team who set a clear long-term strategy. The markets are identified in which market segments are decided, and the airline is devoted to meeting the product needs of those identified market segments. This is the application of the marketing theory. But, first of all, what is marketing? "Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably." There is a need to differentiate between consumer and industrial marketing. This consists of items of a relatively low unit price and there is usually not much contact between the consumer and the producer. What is being market-oriented? Marketing investigation is done to gain a thorough knowledge of the market that the airline is interested in going into, and the areas of unsatisfied customer's wants and needs will surface. An airline may also consider going into a market segment where consumer's wants and needs are satisfied less than their expectations. A collection of competitor's actions is also important in the initial stage of the application process of marketing theory to real-life corporations.
With four airlines now working together to continually improve customer benefits, SkyTeam was created. SkyTeam is the first alliance built around customer needs and is currently one of the world's top three global airline alliances.