LoFare Airlines Microworld

Can you develop new routes quickly in this intensively competitive industry, and make the pricing and marketing choices to win passengers? Can you provide enough aircraft for a reliable service, and still make money, while competing with other low-fare operators and full service airlines trying to hold onto their business?

Description
In this game, your team build and operate a "low-fare" airline, such as Ryanair (Europe), Southwest (USA) or Air Asia (Far East) at any time from the birth of the industry to the time when the market is saturated and mature – a total of 20 years (though you do not have to do all of that!).   More...

Key Learning points
The LoFare Airline game provides powerful general learning about the management of strategy over time – diagnosing the state of an existing business and its market, setting appropriate objectives, then steering strategy to deliver those objectives – plus specific learning about managing strategy against competitors, and over an industry’s lifecycle.   More...

Features
Like all our microworlds, this game is a self-contained PC application, for use by individuals or small teams. It plays out business performance over a time-scale that is long enough to experience the complexity of strategy and decision-making. Teams control strategy by making a small number of key decisions, and can progress through the simulation at their own pace, trying alternatives and saving scenarios.

There are four pre-set challenges built in to this game, each of which includes a full range of data to help guide performance. These offer the opportunity for progressive learning, as teams take on simple scenarios first, followed by the tougher challenges of intense rivalry.

For teachers & trainers, an annotated slide set, suggested teaching schedules, teaching plan, instructions on using the simulation, background information and references. The game also makes an excellent addition to any of the popular case-studies on the low-fare airline industry, allowing participants to move on from mere class discussion to actually take on some of the strategy challenges this industry presents.   More...

Uses
Workshops and courses for General Management, Strategy, Systems Thinking and Service Management.   More...