Airline Supply Demand Curve

Airline Supply Demand Curve Airline industry provides us air transportation that improves our lives by shortening the time it takes us to reach a destination and also deliver goods. Airline industry undergoes oligopoly market, where only a few sellers that provide similar products or services but differentiated in the branding and the promotion method. Basically, there are four main categories in the airline industry, which is international, national, regional, and cargo. International flights provide services between countries; both national and regional flights are domestic flights within a country, but regional flights have shorter distance compare to national flights; cargo is mainly for the use of transport goods. In this assignment, we are going to briefly explain the determinants and the changes in market condition that affect the demand and supply of the airline industry. There are few determinants that will cause a change in the supply demand curve in the airline industry. Determinants on demand curve. The first determinant is income. When a country experiences a growth in the economy, the average income of citizens will increase. In this case, air ticket plays a role as a normal good, this is because an increase in the income will lead to an increase in the demand of air ticket purchased, one example is families might travel more often as they are in good economic condition. The second determinant is prices of related goods, where a change in price of a good might affect the demand of the other good. In the airline industry, the price of fuel has a direct influence to the demand of air ticket. When the price of fuel increases, airline industry has to increase the price of air ticket to maintain its revenue. Therefore, the fuel price and the demand of air ticket have a relationship of complements, where increase in the fuel price leads to a decrease in the demand for air ticket. However, in some special cases especially during a decline in the economy, the airline industry will not raise the price of air tickets because the customers would scare away. Therefore, the demand of air tickets is also quite dependent to the condition of economy. The third determinant is number of buyers. The more the buyers in the airline industry, the demand of air ticket will be higher. When a promotion is held by the industry airlines, there will be more buyers on the purchase of air ticket. This is because the air tickets normally sell at a lower price to attract more customers especially during a not-so-peak season. Thus, the demand or air tickets will increase and the airline industry will gain more profits even though the air tickets are selling at a lower price. The last determinant is expectation on future income and future price, which means the prediction of consumers on how much they will earn and the value of a good in the future. For example, if the economy has a positive development, where people expect a higher income in the future, they might go for a vacation and shift the demand curve of air ticket to the right. However, if they realize there will be an increase in price of air ticket in the future probably due to peak season, they will choose to purchase now then later and cause the demand curve to shift to the right. For the other variable like tastes that can affect demand curve, we will ignore it because it is based on personal behavior and is uncertain to the airline industry. Determinants on supply curve. The first determinant is input prices. When the cost of producing goods increases, the supply will decrease. In airline industry, one of the main input prices is the fuel price. As other variables are constant, when the price of fuel increases, the number of flight per day will decrease to reduce the cost of airline industry. The second determinant is technology. A better technology can shift the supply curve to the right. Technology advancement plays a very important role in airline industry. Airline industry is trying their best to seek for better technology in fuel conservation. Besides, they also work with airframe and engine manufacturer in designing the components of aircraft to reduce the fuel consumption of each flight. Thus, with the improvement of technology, airlines can provide more flight then before using the same amount of fuel. The third determinant is weather. As this is air transportation, weather often becomes a big issue to the airline industry. A heavy snow during winter, or a bad pollution, often disrupts the takeoff and landing of aircraft. Unfortunately, weather is not control by humans, the airline industry only can do their best in providing complete and safety facilities to protect their users. Although bad weather does not last very long, it does bring some effect on flight for short periods. The last determinant is expectation on future price. When a firm expects there is a raise of price in future, they will supply less today until the price of the product increase. In the airline industry, when they expect the price of air ticket to rise in the coming peak season that brings higher profits, they will reduce or maintain the number of flights now. Thus, when comparing the number of flights for two periods, the supply for now can said to be less compare to future. Since airline industry undergoes the oligopoly market, the determinant of number of sellers will be excluded. Other variables like taxes and subsidies will also be excluded as they are not uncertain. Conclusion As we can see from above, airline industry has to concern many determinants that can affect the airlines demand and supply. Besides, they have to observe carefully on the changes in market condition and take immediate action if there is any unexpected issue. According to the Air Transport Association (ATA), labor is the largest expenses of the airline industry, followed by fuel cost. Other variables like weather and technology also have to put well attention to ensure the safety and revenue of the airline industry. The study of economics may help the airline industry when making a decision and better choice by providing knowledge on the efficiency use of resources.

Comparison of Gilgamesh and Odysseus Essay

In the realm of epic poetry, heroes go off and accomplish great things, while dealing with deities and mortal beings alike. This is no different in Homer’s The Odyssey or The Epic of Gilgamesh. In The Odyssey, the tale is recounted of the great warrior Odysseus trying to return home to his wife after fighting a great war. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, it is told of how a demigod, Gilgamesh, faced retribution for poor leadership and manages to redeem himself. However, with all the similarities and conventions of epic poetry, there are also many differences, such as character traits and the nature of obstacles faced by the heroes as well. Even though Odysseus and Gilgamesh possess great importance to the realities in which they exist, Gilgamesh’s impact on his reality is much more negative than Odysseus’s. One of the most important similarities that Odysseus and Gilgamesh have is that they both serve as connections between the Gods and the mortals. Gilgamesh is born of a god and is the ruler of the people of Uruk. Odysseus invoked the wrath of the Gods because of his cruel treatment of the Cyclops, Poseidon‘s son. No matter what the specific circumstance, Odysseus’s and Gilgamesh’s epic statuses make them critical singularities, representative of the Gods to the people, and representative of humans to the Gods. This gives them a divine impact on the realms in which they exist, making them very influential people Aside from this major similarity between Odysseus and Gilgamesh, the two also have much more in common. They both are great warriors, and the results of them defeating certain people greatly affect their worlds. Odysseus’s killing of the Cyclops, for example was able to make a god such as Poseidon take action, and Gilgamesh killing the bull of heaven sent to kill him by the Gods for mistakes he made in the past. Despite their many similarities, Odysseus and Gilgamesh have many differences as well. Odysseus seems to be presented as more of a cunning tactician while Gilgamesh relies more on brute force.

The Effects of Neuromarketing in Consumer Behavior

Neuromarketing helps many companies and academics to understand how the neurons in our brains behave in such a way that stimulates and influences our desire to consume products from a particular brand. The purpose of my research was to find out what influences my buying decisions referencing the book Buy-ology by Martin Lindstrom, which talks a about a Neuromarketing study that used 2,000 volunteers from around the world and related to the concepts learned in Consumer Behavior class. A personal consumption Journal is an excellent source of information that describes in detail my personal consumption experiences helping me to be more attentive of my consumer habits when marketers try to influence my judgment towards a product. The journal of Stephen J Gould states that â€Å"introspection involves the provision of verbal data about one’s own experiences that are consciously available only to oneself†. The data I collected with my journal was important and useful because it gave me the opportunity to compare the findings of Lindstrom with my personal experiences as an active consumer of a capitalist society. The journal was a challenging task for me because it took me a long time to be adapted to maintain up to date the log, eventually it became a routine. My consumer journal revealed that I was constantly seduced by companies to buy more products of their brand using my sensory receptors to attract my attention. An example was Victoria secret, my favorite lingerie and beauty store that seduce me to enter the store with an appealing smell and a mannequin wearing beautiful lingerie. Once you walk into the store there is a feeling of privacy and comfort. A quote from my Journal says â€Å"the lovely smell and texture of the Victoria secret cream increase my desire to come back and buy more products†. I immediately related my experience with the concept learned in class about sensation which is the instant reaction of the sensory organs to a stimulus. Companies try to create unique scents for their products in order to remain in the mind of the shoppers. One example is the Johnson and Johnson’s baby cream that just by a quick smell of the product; you will be immediately transported to your childhood memories. Lindstrom states that these kinds of associations are why companies use the mell of vanilla which is found in breast milk. An experiment carried out by a clothing store revealed that when the vanilla scents were sprayed across the women’s department, sales of the female merchandising increase in high numbers. Today companies are more frequently adopting the Sensory branding because if the consumer perceives a enjoyable scent with an attractive and seductive product, we are more likely to remember the product making it easy to the company to stay in your subconscious. Many companies around the world are using Neuromarketing to meet success in launching their new product. One example is Christian Dior, which scanned its new perfume J’adore to a series of FMRI studies to determine its ad placements in the market. As a result, they gathered a great success in selling their perfume J’adore and coincidentally having me as one of their loyal consumer. Neuroscience is so powerful that can even determine by brain scans how much a consumer is willing to pay for a good or service. Lindstrom conducted a series of studies on how a consumer perceives prices and if it had an influence on the decision of buying the product. He says â€Å"When subjects view luxury products such as Louis Vuitton and Gucci being sold at full price, both the nucleus accumbens and the anterior cingulated light up, showing the pleasure of anticipatory reward mixed with the conflict about buying such an expensive doodad. But when consumers are shown the same products at a significant discount, the â€Å"conflict† signal decreases as the reward activation simultaneously goes up† (Lindstrom, 2008, 197). In my log, I wrote my experience when buying a dress for a special dinner I had in October. I went to the Guess store to try to find the perfect outfit for my special occasion, all the merchandise I liked was at retail price so I decided to go to Macys and look in the guess section for my surprise the dress I wanted in guess was priced at 25% off at Macys. In my mind the price of the dress persuade me to buy the item thinking that I was getting a good deal. The study of Lindstrom and my personal experience was a clearly example of reference prices which is the price a consumer utilize as a source for comparison in judging another price. Lindstrom recalls an interesting study in his book performed by researches from Stanford University and the California Institute of Technology in which they asked twenty volunteers to position their pleasure and delight of different priced wines under an FMRI. The trap was that two of the wines were presented twice, one with a high price and the other with a low price. The findings of the researches state â€Å"When the expensive wine was presented, there was a flurry of activity in subjects’ medial orbitofrontal cortices, where they perceive pleasantness-indicating that the higher price of a product enhances our enjoyment of it†. In my opinion, the use an expensive product makes us feel pleased because in our minds we relate quality with expensive prices which is not always true. In Colombia the prices of low quality clothing are very high compared with the income of the population. Every time I go back home I complain about the market and their prices, entrepreneurs tend to take advantage of the people by buying merchandise at a low price in the U. S and china and selling in Colombia for five times the wholesale price. I understand that is a business and profit need to be made but an extremely high price in products limits the consumer capacity to consume. The book Buy-ology by Martin Lindstrom explains how his recent research in Neuroscience reveals revolutionary concepts about how people are influence by various advertisements strategies. Lindstrom through a detail study of the brain evaluates the effectiveness of the subconscious ads and is able to determine that they are actually more effective than the traditional advertisement logos. In his book he explains the effectiveness of subliminal advertisement campaigns and depicts real life scenarios of the marketing world. Lindstrom in his three year study, with a cost of seven million, engaged some of the top Neuroscientists – Dr Gemma Calvert current chair in applied Neuroimaging at the University of Warwick, England and founder of Neurosense in Oxford was in charge of overseeing the research team for this study. One of the conducted case studies was to discover if subliminal messages would produce cravings similar to the ones generated by the traditional logos. They picked the tobacco industry for this experiment since it is one of the industries which have been forced to adopt new marketing strategies due to the global tobacco advertisement ban effort. Tobacco companies such as Marlboro and Camel have implemented subliminal messages in response to this ban which have now, after this research, proven to be more effective. Lindstrom writes â€Å" More fascinating still, when Dr Calvert compared the brains’ responses to the two different types of images, she found even more activity in the reward and craving centers when ubjects viewed the subliminal images than when they viewed the overt images. In other words, the logo-free images associated with cigarettes, like Ferrari and the sunset, triggered more cravings among smokers than the logos or images of the cigarette pack themselves† ( Lindstrom, 2008,84). Formula one being one of the top most watched sports in the world created an association between the competing teams and tob acco brands. Prior to the tobacco bans Formula one teams’ were sponsored primarily by cigarette companies such as Marlboro, Camel, Lucky Brand, etc and their logos were decaled all over the cars. For all those who were acquainted with the sport, this long-lasting relationship between teams and tobacco brands created an association in people’s perceptions that still exist today even when the tobacco logos have been removed form the cars. A clear example of this is Ferrari with Marlboro, their cars, drivers and mechanics jumpsuits are red just like the Marlboro original brand logo, but more interesting that this long lasting partnership with Phillip Morris was the barcode logo that they had been using up until the beginning of this year, which according to the experts, resembles the bottom of a Marlboro cigarette pack. John Britton, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and director of its tobacco advisory group, states, â€Å"according to the Times: â€Å"The bar code looks like the bottom half of a packet of Marlboro cigarettes. I was stunned when I saw it. This is pushing at the limits. If you look at how the bar code has evolved over the last four years, it looks like creeping branding. † (Pitpass. com). As being a Formula One fan myself, I experienced similar results to those conducted by Lindstrom. In my Journal, I noticed that my friends and I were always purchasing Marlboro cigarettes after watching a race. Unconsciously, I was having a desire to smoke without having being exposed to a Marlboro logo but instead having watched a red Ferrari car race around a circuit for two hours. This indicates that Marlboro has used subliminal message campaigns effectively through their partners creating a greater desire in consumers to purchase their product. This notion contradicts some of the findings of the effectiveness of subliminal persuasion in the book Consumer behavior (chapter 6). The book consumer behavior says â€Å"There is no evidence that subliminal advertising persuades people to buy goods and services. A comprehensive review of the literature indicates that subliminal perception has no effects on attitudes toward products and consumption behavior and that most of its effects were discovered in highly artificial situations†. In my research, I learned a lot about the mirror neurons which are accountable for why we imitate other individual’s behavior. The mirror neurons are responsible for when we try to lower our voices when someone is whispering. In terms of consumer behavior we can relate this concept to when we go to the mall and see a mannequin with an amazing dress with the matching shoes and purse that make her look elegant and slim. The consumer immediately buys the dress thinking that we as consumers are going to look the same if we acquiring the style and image that the store wants to sell us. In my journal, I found many scenarios where the mirror neurons influenced my rational thinking and caused me to unconsciously purchase what the store was displaying. In my visit to Hollister, one of the top 10 US clothing brands, I saw a female model at the entrance of the store wearing ultra casual red sweeter that immediately caught my attention because the color was perfect for the Christmas season, which then lead me to go inside the store to purchase the sweeter. The mirror neurons triggered my desire to buy the cool-looking sweeter I saw at Hollister. In conclusion, I was overwhelmed by the responsibility that our neurons and subconscious plays in our consumer behavior and how we attach to certain brands. In my opinion, Neuromarketing will soon be an essential source of information for marketers in terms of predicting the future of a new product in the market. The book Buy-ology explains the latest findings involving brains scans and successfully related to sales and purchases. Overall, Buy-ology gave me the opportunity to compare the statements of the book consumer behavior with the findings of Lindstrom and Dr. Calvert. After the consumer behavior class, I have come to acknowledge my consumer habits and be aware of the marketing strategies that influence my decision-making process.

Slaverys Global Impact and Economic Justifications,...

Slavery’s Global Impact and Economic Justifications, Today and Yesterday Slavery existed in some form in every region of the world. During the earliest civilizations, slave labor built nations and empires in Europe, Egypt, Greece, Asia and Africa. Thousands of years later, the Portuguese, Dutch and English realized the profit value that a market in human capital would provide. Africans were exported from their homeland to the New World under the most miserable conditions imaginable. Prof. Marcus Rediker, author of The Slave Ship, A Human History says, â€Å"We’re fascinated by all the tall ships except the most important one, and that’s the slave ship. And that one we can hardly bear to look at†. Slaves were packed like sardines†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"In India, Hindu law dictates that a slave should not be mistreated. A slave was to be housed, clothed and fed, and, in certain cases, could be beaten, but only on their back when punished. A slave could try to escape once, and if they succeeded they could go back t o their caste. If an owner was very religious, he would treat his slaves well† (Bogucki, 2008). In reality though, the life of a slave was different from what the religion required. Often a slave’s life was filled with terror; in most cases, they were mistreated, beaten, and killed for the slightest infraction. They were forced to haul water in poor weather, carry heavy loads of goods or other supplies and were responsible for the upkeep of their owner’s homes. Some royal governments imported slaves from Greece to work as palace guards. Women and castrated males (eunuchs) were used to protect a king’s harem of concubines and some women guards would become connubial. Ewald (1992) suggests that slavery and the slave trade in the Atlantic and Islamic Africa cannot be compared. The Islamic world began trading slaves a thousand years before the Atlantic slave trade. Slaves who sailed on the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean, or those who crossed the Sahara Desert ended up in Muslim societies. Rulers and owners of large tracts of land used thousands of slaves for agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa, usually in dire conditions. Of the Saharan salt mines it is said that no slave lived