Alamdari and Fagan (2005) have suggested that low-cost airlines have, in varying degrees, departed from the original low-cost model introduced by Southwest Airlines. They examine the single year of 2001 utilizing a qualitative checklist of product and operational features to measure differences in strategic positioning in a combined sample of U. S. and European low-cost airlines. This study provides a multi-year analysis in the post-9/11 time period, for the years 2004-2009, of the demonstrated strategic positioning choices of U. S. low-cost airlines. The sample utilized is restricted to U. S. low-cost carriers so as not to conflate operating environments. Furthermore, a quantitative methodology is employed to effectively measure these choices and to facilitate inter-firm comparisons.
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