Positioning Strategies and Competitive Advantage of Local Airlines in Kenya

Abstract

A firm gains competitive advantage by developing or by acquiring a unique set of attributes or conducts its business in a unique manner that makes it outperform competitors. One way of acquiring the unique set of attributes or executing unique actions is through having unique marketing strategies for its products that result in effective product positioning. Local airlines providing air transport services in Kenya have to compete with international airlines for the market. This study was conducted with the aim of establishing the product positioning strategies used by the local airlines to gain sustainable competitive and how the strategies contributed to competitive advantage. The study was conducted on the 15 local airlines that made up the target population. The study adopted the descriptive approach and used survey methods. Data were collected from the marketing managers of the airlines by use of a self-structured questionnaire. 11 out of expected 15 questionnaires were used in the analysis making a response rate of 73.3 percent. The study found that local airlines in Kenya use product positioning to market their services as a strategy to gain sustainable competitive advantage. Most used product positioning strategies include increasing the sizes of carriers to accommodate more travelers, increasing the number of flights to every destination and persistently maintaining presence in the business till customers accept it. The strategies they use but to a lesser extent due to their less effective effect on sustainable competitive advantage include having as many destinations as possible on a given route and ensuring customers get high quality comfort when travelling. The product positioning strategies used by local airlines had a positive effect on sustainable competitive advantage. This indicates that the strategy improved the performance of the companies by sustaining the competitive advantage of the local airlines in the air transport business. This study recommends that local airline firms should ensure that they improve their use of product positioning strategies to improve their sustainable competitive advantage. To do this, the airlines can improve their strategy widening their destinations as much as possible on a given route and ensuring customers get high quality comfort when traveling. They can also strive to connect as many routes as possible to a particular destination, carry all classes of service users in the same plane and using flexible time rules to reduce flight cancellations