Flying Off Course: The Economics of International Airlines

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Summary: Great overview, at times too basic
Review: Having worked in airports for the past 10 years, and now moving to the airline side, I wanted a broad overview of airline economics. The book did a first rate job.

The only criticism would be that if you have a few years of experience and know your way around the basics of financial analysis, some of the examples and explanations will be a bit of a waste of time.

The book is well structured and about as interesting as a book on this subject can be (be realistic, the subject has it's limits...). A great novice book, a good one for those already airside.

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Summary: Good book but a bit out of date
Review: I am an airline analyst and this book give me some background info on different aspcet. It gives you basic understanding on how the industry works and I personally learn a lot from this.

The problem is that it is a bit out of date and so I need to spend a lot of time verifing the data. Other than that, this is a very good one for beginners.

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Summary: Nice introduction
Review: If you need a quick insight into airline business - BUY THIS BOOK. Rigas did a great job in explaining the difficult world of airline business to a dummy like me. Now, having a quite deeper knowledge, I am missing some in-depth information about the commercial side and route planning. Overall: a best buy.

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Summary: A 'must'.
Review: Probably the best introduction into the economics of airlines ever written.

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Summary: The best text available for airline economics -- Period.
Review: Superb! This text clearly explains the complex economic issues surrounding airlines today, including social and political perspectives. By far the best available resource for potential (or current) airline managers to help understand the driving forces in today's global airline industry. Certainly acceptable for any level of higher academic study, the text looks at economic paradigms driving the industry and provides a fresh perspective of the perils facing airilnes in the 21st century.

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Summary: Comprehensive, thorough overview of international airlines
Review: The former Olympic Airways Chairman (now Professor of Air Transport at the prestigious Cranfield University, UK) provides a magnificent overview of the economics of international airlines. The title refers to airlines' apparent inability to satisfy the most basic of economic necessities: matching supply and demand

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Summary: Get to know the problems of an international airline
Review: The past few weeks I noticed some articles in the newspaper about all kinds of airline gettogethers, nice talks, interesting promises and large headlines. If only the authors of these articles had read this book, they would have avoided words as 'surprising', 'news of the day' and 'new policy?'. Doganis explains it all in his book, and in such a way that I liked it, remembered it and am still capable of reproducing. To me it was an excellent introduction to a field, far from my bed.

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Summary: BEST BOOK IN AIRLINE ECONOMICS
Review: This book is a must for anyone contemplating a study of the aviation industry. Being myself an avid aviation enthusiast and an Economics student at the London School Of Economics, I have relished every single chapter of the book and it proved instrumental in applying some concepts of core Microeconomic Theory to the Airline Business. The book is written in a clear and comprehensible way and the chapters are lightly intertwined in a way that will suscitate the general interest of the reader. In addition to the cogency and incisiveness of the chapters, Professor Doganis succeeds in stiking 2 birds with one stone's throw when it comes to dissociate the practical side from the empirical side.

In a synopsis, i would put this book in the top of list if i were to recommend to my students- should i myself become a Professor of Airline Economics and Finance later on

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Summary: Academically Rigorous, Yet Comprehensible
Review: This is the best introduction to the fundamentals of airline economics that I have ever read. Doganis, an analyst and teacher these days, is able to take all his years in industry (including a stint as CEO of Olympic Airways of Greece) and distill it into a useful text full of real world examples. The third edition is updated to include new developments like Internet ticketing, and was written post-9/11, so that sections dealing with issues such as security are up to date.

The book has complete sections on airline, aircraft, and route planning and forecasting, and related subjects such as yield management, marketing, and charter operations. Of particular note is the chapter on pricing policies and fare structures; it is clear that Doganis completely understands the significance of the low cost carriers and the future of yields throughout the different regions of the world.

I always enjoy reading Doganis, and vastly prefer this updated version of "Flying Off Course" to the pre-9/11 "The Airline Business in the 21st Century" (although I do recommend that book as well.) This is a great book, and should be read and understood by airline managers everywhere. My only caution is that though it is not the most mathematically exhaustive book on the subject, casual readers may not enjoy the book inasmuch as it is quite weighty and the chapter on forecasting demand is fairly mathematically rigorous.