Qantas is an aviation airline business and is Australia’s largest and oldest airline. They were founded in November of 1920 by two WW1 veterans, Paul McGinness, and Fergus McMaster. Initially established in Winton of Queensland, Australia. Qantas was founded to provide air travel across Australia due to its vast distances spread between its major cities, and provide a faster alternative of travel for passengers, mail and cargo, travelling to both domestic and global areas apart from some areas in Asia. The aim of this report is to:
Describe the nature, role and type of business structure.
Explain two internal and two external inÖuences affecting the business during its global expansion. Evaluate one response to one challenge in one stage of the business cycle.
1. Nature, Role, and Type of Business
Qantas-is an Australian business that provides services for leisure-and acts a connection between Australia and the rest of the world. Qantas’s services include transport to other countries and airmail services subsided by the Australian Government. It currently has 23500 employees and has a net worth of $8.649 billion. It began expansion globally in 1935 in which they Õrst introduced their services in Singapore. Qantas’s role has differed over time, in which it initially was a monopoly and controlled the entire industry. However, it now shares a market with Jetstar, Virgin and Rex. All its services mainly include the transportation-of customers through Qantas and Jetstar which they later bought out. In addition, they spend approximately 8 billion dollars supporting roughly 3100 suppliers throughout Australia and has the largest footprint of network and Öeet amongst communities and economies throughout Australia. Qantas is a public company and has shares listed on the national stock exchange, and due to its employee count and proÕt margin, it is considered a large business.
2. Impacts of Internal and External Factors
2.1 – External Factors Throughout its lifetime, Qantas has taken many events into consideration when making any verdicts for its distant and near future. An example-of two external factors may include the social impact of terrorist attacks and the introduction of new technologies in aviation. Because of the terrorist attacks in 2001, Qantas were forced to temporarily shut down select Öights to America and were later returned by 2002. Qantas’s domestic services were also affected due to the large number of-international Öiers that connect onto a domestic Öight, resulting in Qantas reducing their services by 20% (Christopher Raynes et al) across its international network. This setback resulted in their expansion being reduced in America. However, the tragedies both resulted in an increase in safety throughout their Öights, and sparked innovation and restructuring within the global market of aviation. Qantas also was a beneÕciary of technological improvements and innovation within the aviation industry. Over time, planes gradually evolved to keep up with technological advancements, leading to their services being more efÕcient, enhanced customer service and reduced costs. An example of this is Qantas’s new project, dubbed “Project Sunrise” which is a Öight spanning from Sydney to London to-New York with a duration of 19 hours, with the help of their technological advancements. However, the introduction of this new technology has also resulted in cybersecurity risks and a dependency on these systems, creating a sense of-risk granted their systems become vulnerable, leading to their business downfall. Thus, through the impact of social and technological changes over time, Qantas actively took these inÖuences under consideration during their expansion.
2.2 – Internal Factors
Qantas also takes internal factors into consideration when making decisions as a business. Two of such factors include location and management. In 1935, when Qantas began reaching out globally, location was a major factor due to their isolated nature from the rest of the world, this proved to be a challenge because of proximity to other tourist-dense areas such as England and U.S.A. It resulted in cultural differences which made it difÕcult for Qantas to reach its desired market. However, due to the tourism potential, it had a prime advantage in-advertisements. This-advantage is on account-of the youth of the company, and Australia’s early introduction into the market, resulting in untapped-market, solely owned by Qantas allowing it to reign freely as a monopoly in which they can create brand loyalty, maintain control, and reach higher proÕt margins. Moreover, strategic decision-making at Qantas is greatly inÖuenced by effective management, which can have a good effect on the competitiveness and expansion of the business. By increasing the airline's route network, developing strategic alliances, and investing in Öeet modernization, management may improve Qantas' global reach and operating efÕciency. However, bad decision-making or strategic mistakes made by management can have negative consequences that lead to wastage of resources, missed opportunities, and operational inefÕciencies. Thus, Qantas's success-in the aviation sector and its trajectory are heavily inÖuenced by the efÕciency of management decisions and the- location of the business.
3. One response to a challenge faced during expansion.
Qantas faced many challenges during its globalization and growth stage mainly due to different social hardships such as terrorist attacks and the fresh market that Qantas needed to tackle. One such toil that it needed to overcome was the highly competitive market for airlines globally. Qantas faced stiff competition from both established brands and low-cost airlines from most countries it expanded into. Qantas, needed to challenge brand loyalty and set a name for itself in other countries by creating alliances with other airlines strategically, therefore, allowing Qantas to increase its-presence in the market and allow customers to acknowledge them as a brand. The partnerships meant that Qantas could offer connecting Öights for other airlines, and they would be able to offer code share Öights for their allied brands’ routes allowing Qantas to beneÕt from join purchasing agreements, shared airport facilities and collaborative scheduling resulting in improved efÕciency and saving on expenses. An example of one of the partnerships they did was with Oneworld and their collaboration in 1999 with American Airlines, British Airways, Cathway PaciÕc and some others. Through this collaboration Qantas gained access to a network of different routes globally and created beneÕts for their customers. This strategy improved it’s brand awareness and recognition among-consumers by offering more travel options and convenience, which demonstrated its effectiveness at what it set out to do, bringing success to Qantas against its competition all in its growth stage.
Conclusion: All in all, Qantas-is a large aviation airline company with humble beginnings in 1920 in Queensland, and through expansion and growth of the business is Australia’s leading company in all things aviation. The decisions acted out inÖuenced by internal and external factors and their strategic judgement during their times of struggle due to a new market acted beneÕciary as seen from their popularity found in other countries has resulted in the success of the business and depicts good judgement.
Bibliography: Raynes, C. and Tsui, K.W.H., 2019. Review of airline-within-airline strategy: case studies of the Singapore airlines group and Qantas group. Case studies on transport policy, 7(1), pp.150-165.
Quinlivan, C., The impact of globalisation on QANTAS.
Morley, C.L., 2003. Globalisation, airline alliances and tourism: A strategic perspective. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 8(1), pp.15-25.
Pereira, B.A., Lohmann, G. and Houghton, L., 2022. Technology trajectory in aviation: Innovations leading to value creation (2000–2019). International Journal of Innovation Studies, 6(3), pp.128-141.
(No date) The Complete Toolbox for Investors. Available at:
https://finbox.com/OTCPK:QUBS.F/models/historical-10yr/ (Accessed: 19 March 2024).
Strong, J. (2001) 2001 Annual General Meeting. Available at:
https://investor.qantas.com/FormBuilder/_Resource/_module/doLLG5ufYkCyEPjF1tpgyw/file/agm/Chairmans AddressAGM2001.pdf (Accessed: 19 March 2024). PDF of Chairman's Address
Qantas (2019). Our history | Qantas AU. [online] Qantas.com. Available at: https://www.qantas.com/au/en/about-us/our-company/our-history.html.
