Consumer Behaviour

All the competitors were engaged in aggressive promotion and soon started a 'price war' in order to outdo one another. For the next six months, each of them offered big discounts and gifts (such as TV / audio systems) with the return ticket on different routes. The most profitable and commercially viable routes were the major targets of these price related competitions. The consumer was the ultimate beneficiary and in short time, the companies started facing losses due to this price-cutting.
Star Airways had so far remained out of this ‘price-war’ and lost its market share on the competitive routes very rapidly. It was able to retain the clients on other routes, which were not a part of this intense competition. Unhappy an anxious about this state of affairs, the company vice president, marketing, developed a marketing plan with several components. The initial part of the plan consisted of a market research done on a cross-section of existing clients as well as the clients of competitors and the following observations were made :
• Star Airways was considered a quality-oriented company but many felt that it was getting stodgy.
• The satisfaction with crew and schedules had declined over the last 5 years amongst regular customers.
• The clients felt that the airline was losing its edge over customer service because it was non¬flexible.
• The prices offered by competitors are less and they provide only a fraction of services offered by Star Airways. This was the main reason of clients switching over to competitors. As many as 70 per cent respondents considered the costs as the most important factor in deciding on the airline.