An Update on Cutting Capacity to Raise Prices

Several months ago, we wrote a blog (See Blog Here) that noted the capacity reductions in the airline industry. In particular, the large legacy airlines were reducing their capacity in order to raise industry pricing. At the time, this effort was showing relatively little help with industry pricing.

As part of this original blog, we noted that there was a problem with the withdrawal of capacity in order to force prices up. The problem is expansion of capacity by low cost competitors. We explained that we had seen many cases in other industries where industry leaders reduced capacity to force industry prices up, only to be stymied by the addition of capacity by low-cost competitors.

Well, some new numbers have shown that the same thing is happening in the airline industry. AirFinancials.com has measured the change in domestic capacity of the airline industry between 2003 and 2009. The four largest legacy carriers, Delta, American, United and U.S. Airways, reduced their available seat miles, the best measure of domestic capacity, by 85 billion miles, a 21% average reduction. However, during the same period of time, low-cost competitors, including Southwest, JetBlue, AirTran and four other smaller carriers, added 84 billion available seat miles to their capacity. (See the Symptom & Implication, “Foreign competitors are expanding with low prices” on StrateyStreet.com.) So the legacies reduced capacity by 85 billion and the smaller, low-cost carriers, added 84 billion. The industry’s total capacity dropped by 1 billion available seat miles, far less than demand has fallen over the last year. Price competition and low industry returns continue.

The legacy carriers are shrinking away their network and scale advantages to the low-cost carriers. The low-cost carriers are more than happy to replace the capacity that the legacy carriers drop. (See the Symptom & Implication, “Some competitors are using growth to reduce their costs” on StrategyStreet.com.) Bad news for the legacy carriers.

Membership Privileges

The snow skiing season is still a few months away. Still, in preparation for the upcoming season, the ski equipment promotions are underway. One of my favorites comes from Granite Chief. This is a fine retailer of ski equipment in Truckee, California. Each year, the company makes an offer to its customers: Purchase your Ski Service Card by August 31st for $100 and you will have a credit balance for $200 to be used on any of the company’s repair, mounting, tuning and boot-fitting services. Each time the card holder has equipment serviced by the store, Granite Chief will deduct the labor cost from the customer’s Ski Service Card credit. The credit is good only for labor. Any unused balances are not refundable and will not be carried over to the next season. The card expires on May 31, 2010.

This is a common approach to discounting (see Video #43: Four Simple Pricing Rules in Hostile Markets on StrategyStreet.com). The trick with a discount is to limit the customer segments who qualify for the discount. In this case, the store limits the discount to those who purchase a membership card. The store, then, further limits the discount to a total dollar amount.

We have seen many examples of club member discounts over the years. These discounts go to customers who have a particular relationship with the company. In some cases, the relationship is that of employee. For example, Delta subsidized new computers for its employees in a program it sponsored with PeoplePC. In other cases, the relationship is a bit looser. These are often “friends and family” programs that extend discounts to chosen customers. For example, recently Saks offered 25% off to “friends and family.” In a similar program, Banana Republic offered 25% off to its “friends and family” holiday shoppers. The codes for this discount program circulated by email on the internet. Not exactly exclusive, was it?

The Granite Chief program is an example of the second type of club member program. These programs offer discounts to members of company-sponsored clubs or affinity programs. Here the company is more specific in the definition of the customers who qualify for the discount. Programs falling into this category include frequent shopper cards offered by grocery stores. In another example, Chico’s, the apparel retailer, offered its best customers membership in the Passport Club. This club offered a permanent 5% discount for every $500 the customer spends.

All of these club member discount programs increase total sales and confirm customer loyalty. For more on approaches to discount products in ways that limit the discount to select customers, please see StrategyStreet/Improve/Pricing/Brainstorming Ideas/Change the Components of the Price.