Demand Forecasting in Flight Industry

Örebro University

School of Business

Supply Chain Management, 7.5 ECTS

HT2014

Chances and challenges
of the demand forecasting in the flight catering business

Author:                 Rafael Zielinski

Examiner:         Martin Hunter

Date:                 07-01-2015

ABSTRACT

Introduction:

Due to the mass tourism and the low-cost airlines the flight industry is changing and growing. In the past, flying was a luxury good, but nowadays everybody can fly. In fact, the flight industry is growing more and more. Since this industry is fast moving (e.g. demise of Malaysia Airlines), demand forecasting is really important.

Method:

Since I do not have any access to internal information of airlines, I am using information from websites, research articles and books. During researching I had to be critical, because I was using a especially second data. In my theory, I described the requirements, methods and limitations of demand forecasting.

Results: 

Demand forecasting can lead to success or failure, since the companies' results depend in the end from their level of performing. Their performance in demand forecasting is connected strongly to the choice of the method. Additionally, the flight catering industry has five main players which have to cooporate, because the tasks are complex.

Conclusion: 

The flight industry is changing and growing. It is changing so quick that I am sure that many people did not know that they can choose between 20 meals in a plane? Sucess and failure can be reached quickly, so the task of demand forecasting is to bring the airline in a solid position on the market, because nothing is worser than insecurity.

Keywords: Flight catering, demand forecasting, airlines, quantitative methods, qualitative methods

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