4A – FORMING AN OPPORTUNITY BELIEF SUBMIT ASSIGNMENT

1) 
I believe there is an opportunity for a low-cost airline to penetrate the Latin-American market, big airlines like American Airlines and Delta are the few American airlines that operate in the Latin-American market. Some Latin airlines include; Copa Airlines, LATAM, Avianca and Aerolineas Argentina. Most of these airlines are partnered with Delta and American Airlines. This creates kind of a monopoly in which they set their own prices. It is ridiculous to find $400 Round trip Miami-Madrid and a ticket from Miami to Santiago, Chile costs $1100. keeping in mind is about the same distance and length of the trip.
2) 
The unmet need is that for travelers is much more expensive to get to South and Central America while reaching Europe or Asia is a lot cheaper. The need is for the demand of many Latin-American people that live in the United States or Canada, also for whoever pleases to visit Countries like Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Chile. I think the need has always existed, the monopoly that big partnered airline has on some routes, allows them to control the pricing of the flights, thus creating inflated prices that most people cannot afford to pay. It is hard to say what are people doing to meet this need right now, but I do know major South American airports are being remodeled and expanded to allow a larger flow of daily routes and welcome a lot more passengers than before. In terms of airlines, I know the low-cost European airline, Norwegian, has entered the market creating cheap long haul flights from Europe to Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. I am pretty confident there is a strong market from North America, but the airline industry it is quite complicated and daunting nevertheless.
3a) 
Female International Student from Chile (22 years old)
4a)
Question 1: Are you aware of the prices to travel to South and Central America? on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being extremely expensive. How would you rank the prices?
"Depends heavily on the country. Airfare to Colombia, for example, I would rate at a 4 while a ticket to Chile would be closer to 7 or 8."
Question 2: How interested are you into travel to South and Central America, if so which cities or countries grab more your attention?
"I'm very interested in cities like Mexico DF, Santiago, and Medellin."
Question 3: Do you believe that if prices were to be cheaper you would actually hop on a plane and visit this country, explain why?
"Yes, if ticket prices were cheaper it would definitely facilitate travel. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that it isn't necessarily a priority to purchase a plane ticket and travel for leisure, so lower prices would make it more attainable."
Question 4: What do you think it would be a reliable solution to this issue? and if, do you think this is a tangible option?
"There aren't always many options for airlines, so few airlines have control over the prices and they tend to run high for that reason. More competition would allow for more competitive prices."
5a) 
This first interview, I particularly liked how she felt passionate as well about the subject and she provided strong answers for every question. I was also surprised she was aware of prices to other countries as it looks that she had previously looked to travel to these cities. I also agree with her solution to creating more competition.
3b) 
Male International Student from Argentina (21 years old)
4b)
Question 1: Are you aware of the prices to travel to South and Central America? on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being extremely expensive. How would you rank the prices?
"If you live in the United States, I would rank it at a number 5 to travel to Latin-American countries."
Question 2: How interested are you into travel to South and Central America, if so which cities or countries grab more your attention?
"At this moment, I'm not interested in traveling to South or Central America, but if I were interested I would go to Peru and Colombia."
Question 3: Do you believe that if prices were to be cheaper you would actually hop on a plane and visit this country, explain why?
"Prices inside the countries to my opinion are okay, so if the dollar got stronger making it cheaper I would still not go to South or Central America. I do believe airfares are expensive."
Question 4: What do you think it would be a reliable solution to this issue? and if do you think this is a tangible option?
"Since I have no interest in visiting these countries, I have no strong opinion, but airfares to Central America are cheap while airfares to South America are not and I would suggest lowering these fares."
5b)
I like the approach that this student got because he suggested that once you're inside the Latin-American country is cheap to stay, eat, and travel. It came to my surprise that he had no interest in visiting South and Central America.
3c)
Male International Student from Paraguay ( 22 years old)
4c)
Question 1: Are you aware of the prices to travel to South and Central America? on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being extremely expensive. How would you rank the prices?
"To my opinion, I would rank airfares at number 8."
Question 2: How interested are you into travel to South and Central America, if so which cities or countries grab more your attention?
"Yes, I would be interested to travel to Colombia or Costa Rica."
Question 3: Do you believe that if prices were to be cheaper you would actually hop on a plane and visit this country, explain why?
"Yes, I believe that if airfares were to go down it would make it easier to get there."
Question 4: What do you think it would be a reliable solution to this issue? and if do you think this is a tangible option?
" I believe that if a low-cost airline or maybe more than one would facilitate traveling to these countries."
5c)
I think this final interviewer understands my position the most, it felt that his answers were exactly the ones I would say. So I agree with all his replies.
7) 
To summarize, I believe that everybody I interviewed was somewhat related to the subject by having a South American background. All of the people I interviewed, agreed with my issue and that there is an opportunity for other airlines to enter the market and create more competition, that would lower prices. I think that the opportunity is somewhat more accurate than previously, I do believe that now we have more solutions. Not just the solution I gave at the beginning of the post. I believe that if you showed this to people interested in starting this project would be quite capable of, but again the margins of airlines are quite low so it is hard for someone to take on the risk of this expensive investment.

Comments

  1. I feel that i know a lot about what you are saying too! i tend to take the plane a lot to travel back home and i see a fluctuation of prices just because of the time of year. These company's are killing our wallets and making us not want to travel as much. I think that other people would be interested in solving this problem too if you put it out there and got people talking about it. Good Job

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