SM Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

SM - Essay Example Ryanair is one airline that has concentrated its services in Europe and looking into its history to date and its strategies, it is easy to deduce that it is one of Europe’s leading airlines especially in the low cost category. Statement of purpose This paper will look into the history of Ryanair and use particular critical incidents in the life of this airline to illustrate the strategic debates through some highlight on Mintzberg’s theory. The paper will also look into the key strategic decisions the company will have to make in order to achieve their strategic aspirations. Lastly, the company’s implementation challenges in the global market will be highlighted. Company’s history Ryanair, a low cost and low fares airline, has done tremendously well as compared to many airlines in Europe especially those that were established around the same time i.e. in the mid 1980s. British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Aer Lingus and EasyJet have formed the closest rivals to Ryanair for years. It boasts of having yearly customer traffic of over 66.5 million from its humble beginnings of just 5000 passengers back in 1985 (Ryanair 2011). The projected traffic for 2010 was set by the management led by Michael O’Leary at over 70 million. ... ed with the airline’s appreciation of the fact that without sustainable expansion strategies it would be difficult to venture into the European sky and rule. Back in 1985 it had just one route i.e. Waterford to London with a single aircraft to handle it. The management at the time then proposed a purchase of a number of jet aircrafts that were faster and more efficient and therefore could handle more destinations on daily basis. Up until 1990 the company was growing at an impressive rate when all over sudden it started a downward trend (Pearce et al. 2003; Slack et al. 2007; Wheelen and, Hunger 2002). At the time many airlines had emerged in Europe with all sorts of products to offer and this had to some extent escaped the radar of Ryanair’s management. Critical incidents in the life of Ryanair and strategic paradoxes Ryanair’s history was immensely shaped by the losses and underperformance witnessed in the early 1990s. This situation caused the management at the time to change its strategies in dealing with the increasing market competition (Gregory & Marilyn 2004; Belobaba 2009; Hill and Jones 2009). The management first renewed their mission of being the leading low cost airline in Europe by focusing again on the cost of operations and fares charged by their competitors. It also concentrated its operations within secondary airports and plied shorter routes than before. In the turn of the 21st century the company found the need to invest in a newer fleet of aircrafts from Boeing that were to handle bigger capacity in terms of passengers and cargo coupled with longer flying distances. The airline website was another strategic alignment in the mid 1990s that opened a new advertising channel and customer interactive platform (Palmer & Ponsonby 2002; Mayer 2007;