Analyst Instructions

The commercial aviation is complex and constantly changing. If you are new to the subject and wish to learn more, here are my recommendations:

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• To make predictions about where the industry is headed in the future, you must study the past. Read over my industry background for a basic introduction, then use the search tools to learn more. Important topics include:
  • Airline Deregulation Act (1978)
  • Mergers and Acquisitions (failed and successful)
  • Air Transportation Safety and Stabilization Act

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• Watch Inside American Airlines. It's the best comprensive documentary on the web about the internal functions of an airline.

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• Learn how airlines make (or don't make) money. There are two prevalent revenue models in the industry—find out how a low-cost carrier (e.g. Southwest) is different than a legacy carrier (e.g. United).

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Key Terms: yield, load factor, fuel hedges, hub and spoke system, point to point (route structure), price discrimination, fare war, overbooking, alliances, revenue-sharing

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• Stay on top of current events. Great resources are the blog, newslist, current events, shared items and aviation search pages of this site. However, I strongly reccommend using an RSS reader to subscribe to the many aviation-related RSS feeds on the web. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal frequently report on the industry and a wealth of information can be found on aviation forums like airliners.net.

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