Reflection 10

Marketing (Reflection Paper) Making airline reservations over the internet through the airline agents and airlines websites are the two best approaches. First, these two approaches help an individual to make a comparison between the available flights in terms of price and other considerations like connecting flights and direct flights. In effect, deducing comparisons from the available options helps a customer determine the airline they prefer according to their financial needs and the urgency of their journey since connecting flights are longer than direct flights. However, the best approach between these two is the approach whereby the customer reserves flights directly via airlines websites with their personal computers since the approach avoids intermediaries (“ Airline Reservation Systems”).
Airline companies are the most likely segments that will use the internet to distribute airline tickets to their customers. In this case, the necessity of these airline companies to deal directly with their clients will be the guiding factor that leads them to use this approach and offer their airline tickets to the customer in order to lessen the power of intermediaries and competitively offer their services to their customers. In addition, airlines will benefit from using this distribution channel since agencies may fail to offer an airline’s tickets to customers and offer the competitor’s tickets depending on the amount of commission an agency obtained from different airline companies.
The main aspect that may inhibit the success of this distribution channel is its nature in targeting customers who have access to computers and the internet. In addition, only computer literate customers will be able to carry out the procedure involved in booking a flight online without the assistance of another person. Therefore, the system leaves out potential customers who were not computer literate and customers who do not have access to the internet. Hence, airline agencies are the most suited distribution channels for these two groups that the internet distribution channel failed to serve.
There is an underlying potential conflict between these two distribution channels. First, the agencies present many alternatives to customers in order for the customer to make an informed decision regarding their choice for the airline to use since an agency does not deal with one airline. Hence, this channel of distributing tickets will not meet a company’s objective of selling tickets directly to the customers since airline agencies will be selling tickets according to the preferences of the customers. In addition, the agencies may provide customers with the tickets that the company stood to earn more commission and fail to offer customers alternatives, which effectively is in conflict with an airlines decision to sell its tickets online directly to its customers.
It is evident that more customers will adopt the approach of booking their tickets directly from websites of airline companies, which means that customers will bypass airline agents. In effect, adoption of direct booking of airline tickets from airline companies’ website by customers will reduce the number of customers who booked flights using airline agencies. On the other hand, adopting direct customers’ direct booking of flights through airline companies’ websites will affect airline reservation systems. In this case, these systems appear complicated for consumers, and they involve a longer process than internet reservations that are fast and unique in nature since the customer takes control of the entire booking process.
Works Cited
“ Airline Reservations Systems Face Internet Threat.” 8 Apr. 2012. Web. 11 Nov. 2012.
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