Friday, June 21, 2013

The Battle of Airline Business Models: Southwest Is On A Rocky Mountain High

There are three main approaches to running an airline: those of international, full service trunk carriers, low cost, reasonably priced, user friendly carriers, and no frills, charge for every thing carriers. All three business models are competing head to head in the Denver market.  Southwest had long shunned Denver.  But the Wall Street Journal's Middle Seat columnist Scott McCartney tells how Southwest bit the bullet in 2006.  In Denver, it competes directly with the other two business models represented by United and Frontier.


Which business model will out?  Scott McCartney writes the whole airline industry are are follwing the battle of Denver which is a fascinating microcosm of the industry. By one measure, Southwest has moved ahead:





Thursday, June 20, 2013

Surprise: Institutions Matter and Ours Are going Downhill!

The decline of America's institutions, and the related rise in red tape that hinders business, may spell the nation's economic doom. Harvard's Niall Ferguson talks to WSJ's Charles Forelle about the theory outlined in his new book The Great Degeneration (Penguin Press, 174 pages, $26.95):



On June 20th, George Melloan reviewed Ferguson book in the Journal. Melloan characterizes it as a jeremiad, but warns, "Doomsayers are never popular, but sometimes they're right."

The Importance of the Europre's Luxury Industry

The Ft's fashion editor Vanessa Friedman reports from the FT Business of Luxury summit in Vienna on how the luxury industry has emerged as a key player and how it is uniting to influence its own future:

Fashion: the Revolt of the Curvy Customer and the Return of the Circle Skirt

What do calendar makers catering to car mechanics know that fashion designers don't?  The women haters in the fashion world have never seemed to notice what the calendar makers have know for years: attractive women have something to them!

On June 13th, On Style columnist Christina Binkley wrote in the Wall Street Journal about Kate Upton and how the fashion industry is finally starting to understand that the emaciated runway models are not very typical of their customers.   Capitalism is a great thing: money talks where nothing else will!



Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour put Kate Upton on the magazine's June cover.  She writes, "if the high-fashion world seems incapable of figuring out what to do with her … then that's it's its loss:" 


Talk about retro: Binkey also advises Mad Men to move over because Happy Days are back in style. Many designers are fixating on 1950s looks: think high school, circa 1955, updated to look 2013-funky, for early fall:

The Paris Air Show

What's big at this year's Paris air show? 

Bloomberg's Guy Johnson sees the show as a battle of the "wide-body" planes: Boeing's Dreamliner versus the Airbus 350.  With Airbus pushing Boeing for market leadership in the twin engine aircraft market, might that mean a price war?  On June 17th, Andrew Parker reported:
Just days before the show begins, Airbus held a public test flight of its new A350. EADS confident on profitability goal 4:46 PM From the Paris air show, EADS chief executive Tom Enders tells the FT's Andrew Parker he is confident that the group will hit its profitability targets.  Enders is bullish on the A350:

Is Boeing worried?  CEO Jim McNerney tells Bloomberg's Betty Liu he welcomes the challenge.  Boeing took orders for the 787-10, its biggest version of the Dreamliner. 

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

India Isn’t Shining Anymore

Opinion: India Isn’t Shining Anymore Gurcharan Das, author of “India Grows At Night,” explains why Asia’s most populous democracy is struggling to grow its economy. Photo credit: Getty Images.