Publications

07 Sep 2021
News

How to Lead through a Merger: US Airways and American Airlines

June 2002
Case

Tale of Two Airlines in the Network Age: Or Why the Spirit of King George III Is Alive and Well!

By: F. Warren McFarlan

Describes an airline service incident that ought not to have happened in the network age. Inadequate use of available technology creates service problems. A rewritten version of an earlier case. View Details

Keywords: Air Transportation; Information Management; Information Technology; Service Delivery; Problems and Challenges; Air Transportation Industry

September 1997 (Revised October 1997)
Teaching Note

Depreciation at Delta Air Lines and Singapore Airlines (A) and (B) TN

By: William J. Bruns Jr. and Jeremy Cott

Teaching Note for (9-198-001) and (9-198-002). View Details

Keywords: Air Transportation; Air Transportation Industry

January 1989
Case

Cathay Pacific Airways (A): Globalization of Airline Reservation and Distribution Systems Technology

By: James I. Cash Jr.

Keywords: Air Transportation; Information Technology; Air Transportation Industry

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25 Jan 2019
News

IndiGo's New Captain

Keywords: India; airline industry; leadership; Air Transportation; Transportation

July 1999 (Revised January 2001)
Case

Northwest Airlines and the Detroit Snowstorm (C): Class-Action Status is Granted to Suits Over Northwest Delay

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

14 May 2018
News

American Airlines gives employees (and the public) a peek at its decision-making one podcast at a time

October 2016 (Revised November 2016)
Case

DO & CO: Gourmet Entertainment

By: Juan Alcácer and Esel Çekin

This case is about a global catering, restaurant, and hospitality company, DO & CO, growing geographically with its existing businesses while also adding new brands to its portfolio. The company had $1 billion in revenues in 2015 from its three divisions: airline... View Details

August 2017 (Revised September 2018)
Case

Accounting Turbulence at Boeing

By: Jonas Heese, Suraj Srinivasan, David Lane and James Barnett

Unlike its rival Airbus, Boeing had used a practice called program accounting to record its commercial aircraft expenses since the 1980s. Program accounting allowed Boeing to expense estimated average costs instead of the actual production costs of an aircraft. This... View Details

Keywords: Asset Recognition; Program Accounting; Airline Industry; Accounting; Production; Cost; Air Transportation Industry

April 2016
Teaching Note

HNA Group: Global Excellence with Chinese Characteristics

By: William C. Kirby and Joycelyn W. Eby

This teaching note is designed to support the teaching of HBS case number 316-013, "HNA Group: Global Excellence with Chinese Characteristics." View Details

Keywords: Corporate Culture; Airline Industry; China; Cross-cultural Adaptation; Air Transportation; Business Conglomerates; Globalization; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Air Transportation Industry; China

September 2016 (Revised July 2018)
Case

United Airlines: More Out-and-Back Flying?

By: Ryan W. Buell, Willy Shih and Mike Toffel

This case looks at United Airlines when it is facing a decision on whether to shift its aircraft routing to more "out-and-back" routing in order to try to improve its on-time performance. As one of the world's largest airlines, United had a very large fleet and... View Details

01 Dec 2022
News

Flying High

Subramanian and Pelet, on the runway with Aero (Courtesy Uma Subramanian) Subramanian and Pelet, on the runway with Aero (Courtesy Uma Subramanian) When Uma Subramanian (MBA 2008) joined Aero Technologies as CEO in March 2019, the company was “just a kernel of an... View Details

Keywords: April White; aviation; airlines; entrepreneurship; leadership; innovation; Air Transportation; Transportation

October 2017 (Revised October 2022)
Case

JetBlue: Relevant Sustainability Leadership

By: George Serafeim and David Freiberg

In 2017, JetBlue, the airline founded on the mission to “bring humanity back to air travel,” was considering becoming one of the first companies to report its sustainability performance according to the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) standards. SASB... View Details

December 1995 (Revised September 2001)
Teaching Note

Tale of Two Airlines in the Information Age: Or Why the Spirit of King George III Is Alive and Well! TN

By: F. Warren McFarlan

Teaching Note for (9-195-240). View Details

Keywords: Air Transportation; Information Technology

July 2002
Teaching Note

Tale of Two Airlines in the Network Age: Or Why the Spirit of King George III is Alive and Well!, TN

By: F. Warren McFarlan

Teaching Note for (9-302-128). A rewritten version of an earlier teaching note. View Details

Keywords: Air Transportation Industry

February 2021
Supplement

HNA Group: Global Excellence with Chinese Characteristics (C)

By: William C. Kirby, Billy Chan and John P. McHugh

July 2017 was supposed to be a triumphant month for HNA Group. The latest Fortune Global 500 list showed the company had again skyrocketed in its ranking to no. 170, an improvement of over 200 positions from the year prior. Yet earlier that same July, the mysterious... View Details

Keywords: Conglomerate; Airline Industry; Coronavirus; Financial Risk; Debt; Bankruptcy; Global Strategy; Restructuring; Health Pandemics; Financial Markets; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Financial Condition; Globalized Firms and Management; Business and Government Relations; Air Transportation Industry; Financial Services Industry; China

2015
Book

MOVE: Putting America's Infrastructure Back in the Lead

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

Americans are stuck. We live with travel delays on congested roads; shipping delays on clogged railways; and delays on repairs, project approvals, and funding due to gridlocked leadership. These delays affect us all, whether you are a daily commuter, a frequent flyer,... View Details

May 2016
Article

Matching with Slot-Specific Priorities: Theory

By: Scott Duke Kominers and Tayfun Sönmez

We introduce a two-sided, many-to-one matching with contracts model in which agents with unit demand match to branches that may have multiple slots available to accept contracts. Each slot has its own linear priority order over contracts; a branch chooses contracts by... View Details

Keywords: Matching With Contracts; Stability; Strategy-proofness; School Choice; Affirmative Action; Airline Seat Upgrades; Contracts; Market Design; Marketplace Matching; Balance and Stability

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October 2018
Supplement

JetBlue: Relevant Sustainability Leadership (B)

By: George Serafeim and David Freiberg

The case outlines JetBlue's decision to disclose according to the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) standards and the ESG metrics they began reporting. Data on resulting changes in institutional ownership are also provided. View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Metrics; Leadership And Change Management; Airlines; Innovation; Purpose; ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Sustainability Reporting; Change Management; Leadership; Mission and Purpose; Financial Reporting