What type of airlines are there

Other airlines in this category like JetBlue and Virgin America are regarded as low cost carriers by some and not by others. Last but not least, the network airlines are the mega-brands that have been around in one form or another since the dawn of commercial aviation.

American, Delta, and United are the three U. With aircraft ranging from 50 to nearly seats, network airlines can get you from Asheville to Shanghai, often in just one stop.

They carry a wide array of passengers, including leisure and business passengers traveling domestically or internationally. They have sophisticated products that cater to business and international travelers. First-class cabins, club lounges, in-flight entertainment and Wi-Fi have become core products for this group of airlines.

As the industry and the consumer both continue to evolve, so do the airlines. Throughout history, airlines of all types and sizes have come, grown, evolved, changed and gone. The only constant is that regardless of your budget and destination, there will almost always be an airline built to cater to you. It is estimated that Emirates provides flights for more than 50 million annual passengers and offers services to more than destinations in total. The fifth biggest airline company in the airline industry is Southwest Airlines.

Established in and commencing with passenger airline services in , Southwest Airlines is recognised as the largest low-cost carrier in the world, according to most metrics. It has more than 60, staff, operates with a fleet of more than aircraft and carries more domestic passengers than any other US airline. Unlike most of the other airlines on this list, Southwest Airlines does not have a main hub and instead relies on a point-to-point system. Most of its destinations are in North America and Central America.

The sixth biggest airline company in the airline industry is China Southern Airlines. China Southern Airlines was founded in and is the largest airline in Asia by fleet size, delivering its services through more than aircraft. The company provides services to in excess of destinations, carries around million passengers each year and employs somewhere in the region of , staff.

One more large airline company within the airline industry is Ryanair. Ryanair is Founded in , Ryanair is based in Dublin, Ireland and is recognised as one of the largest budget airlines in the world, providing flights for more than million passengers every year. These flights cover destinations and the company has a fleet size of more than aircraft. The airline makes use of a point-to-point model, rather than having a central hub, but its main operational bases can be found at Dublin Airport and London Stanstead Airport.

Its route network centres on Europe and the Middle East. Below you find an overview of all airlines worldwide per continent. The 4 Most Important Business Models for Airlines There are a huge number of airlines around the world, each with different ways of doing business. Nevertheless, most can be categorised as belonging to one of the four main business models, which are as follows:. Full-service carriers are airlines that operate with a business model that includes offering a range of pre-flight and on-board services with the price of the ticket.

This may include, for instance, checked baggage, in-flight meals and multiple service classes, such as first-class, business class, economy class, etc. Their operations will typically include both passenger and cargo services, and frequent flyer programmes are often on offer.

They usually offer domestic, international, long haul and short-haul slights. Low-cost carriers are airlines that aim to gain a competitive advantage over full-service carriers by reducing costs.

This is done in a number of ways, including using smaller fleets and smaller aircraft, and also by offering more limited services. Their business model tends to centre around promoting value for money. For travellers, flights from low-cost carriers are often significantly cheaper. However, they tend not to offer lounge services at airports and things like in-flight meals and baggage allowances will almost certainly not be included in the price of the ticket.

Instead, where they are available, customers pay for them separately. Also known as holiday carriers, charter airlines are focused very firmly on providing passenger services to tourists. In most cases, however, they do not sell airline tickets directly.

As with low-cost airlines, the business model does rely on reducing overall costs. Yet, in many cases, in-flight meals and similar services will be included with the price of an airline ticket. Finally, cargo airlines, also known as air freight carriers, are airlines that are either solely or primarily focused on the air transportation of cargo or freight. Some cargo airlines, such as Lufthansa Cargo and Emirates SkyCargo, are subsidiaries or sub-divisions of airlines that also offer passenger services.

Cargo airlines can be further broken down into traditional cargo carriers and integrated cargo carriers. With the latter, all aspects of cargo transportation are controlled by the company, including the ground or non-flight elements. We wrote many articles providing practical tips for finding jobs in the airline industry.

Advice like, how to apply for airline jobs, what are the best job boards and what are top recruitment agencies to find airline industry jobs. Below we piled up all articles which help you to manage a career in the airline industry. There is a wide range of different positions and opportunities within the airline industry, but finding vacancies can be one of the biggest obstacles.

Nevertheless, the vast majority of major airlines will actually advertise important vacancies on their own websites and social media channels, making things significantly easier. Regardless of whether you are already working in the airline industry, or looking for your first job in the industry, you need a reliable way to find airline vacancies and specialised job boards are among the best channels available. Using such a platform, you can not only search for your ideal job, but also apply online too.

If you are hoping to find aviation management jobs, recruitment agencies can often rank among the most viable channels. After all, many of these agencies have long-term relationships with airline industry employers, know exactly what they are looking for, and have access to information about jobs that are not advertised elsewhere. As with other parts of the airline industry, the day-to-day functions within airports are reliant on the people working in the key roles.

There is a huge amount of variety when it comes to airport jobs and this means there are suitable roles for almost anyone, regardless of where you currently are in your career and what skills you possess. The position of airline manager is one of the most senior jobs available to people working in the airline industry.

However, before moving into such a role, it is useful to take the time to learn about what the main duties are, what the entry requirements and what skills you will use. On top of this, you will also need to learn the best ways to apply.

Flight attendant jobs are among the most popular and most rewarding in the entire airline industry. However, the competition for places that exist can make it difficult to find employment, unless you take the necessary steps, such as using the right channels, building the right skills and obtaining the right level of education. The airline industry offers a diverse range of job roles, with airline careers to suit virtually all skills, abilities and levels of experience.

The options range from highly technical jobs, such as pilots, co-pilots and air traffic controllers, through to entry-level customer service and cleaning roles. If you are involved with recruitment for an airline, you need to make sure you are attracting and selecting the best possible candidates. However, finding the right airline staff will only be possible if you take certain steps and you use the right channels to get the word out about any job vacancies you may have.

The aim with any revenue management strategy is to sell the right product or service to the right customer, in the right moment, via the right distribution channel, for the right price. This is applicable to the airline industry too, with companies tracking and analysing the behaviour of passengers, in order to anticipate demand.

Once levels of demand can be predicted, airlines can then focus on optimising availability and adjusting pricing. For instance, an airline can charge higher prices at times of high demand, but may charge lower prices at a time when demand is low, in an effort to fill seats that might otherwise be left vacant. Adopting a revenue management strategy can, therefore, help airlines to increase both revenue and profits.

Today, customers have a range of options for actually booking airline tickets, with online purchases being one of the most common. Some of the most popular websites used for this purpose are outlined below:. The first option for customers looking to book airline tickets is to do so directly through an airline website. This is the most important distribution channel for airlines, because unlike with bookings made through online travel agents or metasearch engines, they do not have to pay a commission fee on the booking.

For customers, airline websites may offer exclusive deals or flights that cannot be found on other platforms, and many offer price match guarantees. Launched in and based in Edinburgh, Scotland, Skyscanner is a metasearch engine owned by the Chinese Trip. The platform allows customers to easily search for flights to and from their chosen destination and will compare prices from different online travel agents, making it easier to find the best possible deal.

In addition to booking flights, customers can also book other travel products, such as hotel rooms and rental cars. Click here for more information about Skyscanner.

Kayak was founded in and is now owned by Booking Holdings, which is the parent company of Booking. The service is available in 30 countries and more than 15 languages, and functions as a metasearch engine, finding flight deals from airline websites, as well as online travel agents. Kayak allows customers to track prices over time and set up price alerts, while it also offers data-driven advice on whether to book now or wait for prices to fall.

Click here for more information about Kayak. Owned by Expedia Group, which is the parent company of Expedia, Travelocity launched in and was an innovator within the field of online travel agents, allowing customers to purchase tickets from the hotel and airline industry without needing to deal with a human agent.

The platform connects with major global distribution systems, in order to access up-to-date information about the availability and prices of flights and other travel products. Click here for more information about Travelocity. The platform, which doubles as a metasearch engine, launched in and is based in Bellevue, Washington, USA. Expedia connects with some of the major global distribution systems, in order to provide information about pricing and availability of airline tickets.

It functions in a similar way to Travelocity, but offers some additional features, such as flexible date searching. Click here for more information about Expedia.

The main online travel agency service owned by Booking Holdings, Booking. The platform is available in a total of 48 languages and the business itself is based in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. Click here for more information about Booking. Bookings can be made on a self-service basis, using the website or mobile apps, or made over the phone, speaking to a human travel agent. As the name indicates, the service was primarily designed with the airline industry in mind. Many scheduled airlines are national carriers that represent a particular country.

They may be private organisations or they may be owned by the Government. Scheduled airlines traditionally provide an inclusive package that includes a seat, baggage and meals, although in recent years many airlines have been unbundling their products and selling each of these elements separately.

The second type of airline is a charter airline. A charter airline is an airline that works on an adhoc basis. A bit like a taxi service, charter airlines only operate when they are required. As such, if there is not the demand to warrant the flight operating, the flight will not take off. Charter airlines will often change flight times or change the number of flights that they operate based on demand.

The more people that want to take the flight, the more flights that they will likely operate and visa versa. Charter airlines are often associated with holiday companies. Some tour operators own charter airlines. Many people who book a package holiday will travel to their destination via a charter airline.

The third type of airline is the budget airline. Budget airlines, also commonly known as low cost airlines, low cost carriers or no frills airlines are airlines that operate on a budget.

A budget airline will typically sell seats for lower prices than scheduled and charter airlines. However, these seats often have less leg room and are less comfortable. Budget airlines make their money by selling ancillary products to passengers. This includes anything in addition to the seat, such as extra leg room, baggage, in-flight entertainment, insurance, in-destination excursions, credit card fees and more.

Budget airlines have grown considerably in the past couple of decades and they have revolutionised the aviation industry. Budget airlines are some of the most profitable types of airlines. Now that you understand the difference between the different types of airlines, I would like to complicate things a little bit- sorry! In recent years many airlines have adapted their business operations in order to remain competitive in the marketplace.

This has meant that not all airlines will easily fit into one of the three types of airlines that I outlined above and it is not always easy to categorise airlines in the same way that it used to be.

For example, scheduled airlines may use ancillary services just as much as a budget airline and budget airlines may offer premium services that are not traditionally associated with no-frills carriers. I hope that you are not confident to describe the three different types of airlines found in commercial aviation.