Social
Social trends are also impacting heavily on the operations of airline
businesses. Travel, particularly to faraway destinations and to tropical locations, has
long been the provision of the more wealthy in society (Schafer and Victor, 1997). An
increase in disposable income since the 1980s has enabled the types of travel that
was previously out of reach of the less wealthy individuals in society to become
affordable. At the same time, there seems to have been a shift in consumer
preferences away from premium types of travel to the low cost travel formats, as
evidenced by the huge increase in the number of low cost carriers. Even airlines with
premium positioning strategies like Singapore Airlines have found that they have little
choice but to enter this market. This might explain the company's recent decision to
increase its share holdings of Southeast Asian low cost carrier Tigerair, in spite of its
recent lack of profitability (Air Transport World, 2014).