Swot Analysis of Airasia

Strong management team: Air Asia has a very strong management team with strong links with governments and airline industry leaders. This is partly contributed by the diverse background of the executive management teams which consists of industry experts and ex-top government officials. For example, Shin Corp (formerly owned by the family of former Thai Prime Minister - Thaksin Shinawatra holds a 50% stake in Thai Air Asia. This has helped Air Asia to open up and capture a sizeable market in Thailand. With their strong working relationship with Airbus, they managed to get big discount for aircraft purchase which is also more fuel efficient compared to Boeing 737 planes which is being used by many other airlines

Strategy formulation and execution.

The management team is also very good in strategy formulation and execution. The strategy that they have formulated at the beginnings was a clever blend of proven strategies by other low cost airlines is US and Europe. They are Ryanair's operational strategy (no frills, landing in secondary airport), Southwest's people strategy (employee comes first) and Easyjet's branding strategy (linking with other service providers like hotels, car rental).

Ø AirAsia's brand name is well established in Asia Pacific. Besides the normal print media advertising & promotions, AirAsia's top management also capitalised on promotions through news by being very "media friendly" and freely sharing the latest information on Air Asia as well as the airline industry. Their partnership with other service providers such as hotels and hostels, car rental firms, hospitals (medical tourism), Citibank (AirAsia Citibank card) has created a very unique image among travellers. Alliance with Galileo GDS (Global Distribution System) that enables travel agents from around the world to check flight details and make bookings have also contributed to their string brand name. Air Asia's local presence in few countries such as Indonesia (Indonesia AirAsia) and Thailand (Thai AirAsia) have successfully "elevated" the brand to become a regional brand beyond just Malaysia. The links with Manchaster United (one of the world's most famous football teams) and AT&T Williams Formula One team have further boosted their image to a greater extend beyond just the this region

Ø AirAsia is the low cost leader in Asia. With the help of AirAsia Academy, AirAsia has successfully created a "low-cost airline mentality" among their workforce. The workforce is very flexible and high committed and very critical in making AirAsia the lowest cost airline in Asia.

Ø The excellent utilization of IT have directly contributed to their promotional activities (email alerts and desktop widget which was jointly developed with Microsoft for new promotions), brand building exercise (with over 3 million hits per month and on the most widely surfed booking engines in the world) as well keep the cost low by enabling direct purchase of tickets by consumer thus saving on airline agent fees

2.0 Weaknesses

Ø Air Asia does not have its own maintenance, repair and overhaul