United Airlines: More Out-and-Back Flying?

Ryan W. Buell; Willy  Shih; Mike  Toffel

Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2016 (Revised July 2018)

United Airlines: More Out-and-Back Flying?

by Ryan W. Buell, Willy Shih and Mike Toffel

Abstract

This case looks at United Airlines when it is facing a decision on whether to shift its aircraft routing to more "out-and-back" routing in order to try to improve its on-time performance. As one of the world's largest airlines, United had a very large fleet and hub-and-spoke network that provided passengers with a wide range of destination choices, but as with any complex system unless everything ran perfectly all the time, it inevitably faced cascading delays and missed passenger connection problems. While out-and-back routing tended to isolate operational issues, more traditional linear routings tended to offer high equipment utilization. The case offers students an opportunity to examine the effects of variability on different routing strategies.

Keywords: service excellence; service management; service quality; service quality competition; services; airline industry; airlines; operational complexity; operational disruptions; operational effectiveness; operations improvement; operations management; operations strategy; Air Transportation; Operations; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Improvement; Complexity; Air Transportation Industry; United States;

Language: English

Format: Print

23 pages

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Citation:

Buell, Ryan W., Willy Shih, and Mike Toffel. "United Airlines: More Out-and-Back Flying?" Harvard Business School Case 617-010, September 2016. (Revised July 2018.)

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United Airlines: More Out-and-Back Flying?

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