1. Using Whittington’s model, identify the dominant strategic approach within low fares airlines. 

2. What are the common external pressures facing both low fares airlines and legacy airlines? 

3. What are the short-term and long-term risks for companies adopting low road employment practices? 

4. What advice would you give to low fares airlines for avoiding the short-term and longterm risks you identify in the previous question?

Since 2010, there have been significant developments in the European civil aviation sector European civil aviation sector in the business strategies of both low fares' and legacy airlines as they restructure to meet the twin pressures of competition and austerity. In most cases, these developments reflect and an accelerated 'race-to-the-bottom' and an increase in 'social dumping', specifically the downgrading of working conditions, training, health and safety and wages. In general, aviation firms cite unfair competition organised by another company to justify tougher working conditions and impose more flexibility, wage cuts or a weakening of the welfare of its workers, such as the use of unsafe working practices, which increase the risks of industrial accidents.
Two comprehensive studies of employment relations in the European civil aviation industry have recently been conducted with the financial support of the European Commission and on behalf of the European Transport Workers' Federation (ETF). The more recent of these, published in 2014 and based on a survey of more than 2,700 European aviation workers as well as case studies of both low fares' airlines (LFAs) and legacy airlines, demonstrates that many airlines now resort to more precarious forms of employment through the use of agency, temporary, and what is widely recognised as 'bogus' or 'false' self-employed workers. They also demand new forms of flexibility that benefit the company rather than the worker and rarely involve employees in any meaningful way in decision that (adversely) affect their daily working lives and future careers.