The strategic evolution of Aer Lingus from a full-service airline to a low-cost carrier and finally positioning itself into a value hybrid airline

Aer Lingus has been an unique airline as it transitioned from a full-service airline to a low-cost carrier and is currently positioned as a value hybrid airline. It has coexisted with Ryanair for decades and it encountered three imminent periods where bankruptcy prevailed from 1993 to 2009. The research aims to uncover the various strategies that were applied to structurally re-engineer the carrier in order to adapt to its evolving competitive landscape. The key pillars underpinning Aer Lingus’ turnaround as a value hybrid were as follows: strict adherence to capacity discipline; relentless cost control and value-adding, consumer-driven product differentiation; innovative partnerships including contract flying to alleviate its problematic seasonality issues inherent in Aer Lingus markets; and by re-engineering its Dublin-based hub airport. A visionary master plan for the hub was fabricated to capitalize on Ireland’s geographical positioning which targeted the traffic flows between UK/European and North American destinations through its synchronized connection network at Dublin

The Mining Industry: From Bust to Boom

The Australian mining industry experienced a remarkable turnaround during the 2000s. The rapid growth of emerging economies in Asia drove a surge in demand for commodities, particularly those used in steel and energy generation. With global supply unable to respond quickly, prices surged to historically high levels. In response, mining investment in Australia rose to record levels as a share of the economy by the end of the decade. The rise in commodity prices has boosted activity and incomes and encouraged the factors of production to shift towards the mining industry. The boom has also been associated with a large increase in the real exchange rate, affecting trade-exposed industries. Overall, Australia's macroeconomic performance during the decade was much more stable than during the earlier mining booms, reflecting a stronger institutional framework.Australian mining industry; commodity prices; structural change

The role of political ideas in multi-party elections in Tanzania: refuting essentialist explanations of African political systems

Negative assessments of African democracy still dominate the literature, and Tanzania has been described as a ‘hybrid regime’—formally a multi-party democracy where the dominant party, Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM), engages in non-democratic practices to ensure that it remains in power, including the manipulation of electoral processes, and in widespread neopatrimonial practices to protect the position of the political elite. This article is a contribution to the criticism of neo-patrimonial and ‘hybrid-regime’ explanations of the capacity of dominant parties to retain political control in Africa (which rest on essentialist views of African society) and to the broader discussion of the nature of African democracy. It uses an analysis of CCM election manifestoes from the beginning of the multi-party era in 1995, contextualised in a discussion of political events and external perceptions of the party, to examine the emphasis that CCM has placed on the use of political ideas and on its responsiveness to public opinion, rather than using the manipulation of elections and other non-democratic political practices, as would be predicted by neo-patrimonial theory. It argues that CCM used political ideas to hold on to popular support from the beginning of the multipartyera to the 2010 elections, during which period its popularity has fluctuated, while the democratic standards that applied to the running of elections and other aspects of political life in Tanzania have continued to improve. During this time the party developed a legitimacy narrative of which the policies of the one-party state formed a key part, as the ideas that they contained continued to underpin concepts of political community in Tanzania

Dual Eligibles: Medicaid Enrollment and Spending for Medicare Beneficiaries in 2007

Provides an update on the share of total Medicaid enrollment and spending on those eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid through 2007, state-by-state estimates of Medicaid enrollment and expenditures for dual eligibles, and a breakdown of expenditures