airlines

This page highlights works on airlines. It supplements discussion of aviation and outer space as precursors of and metaphors for the net.

     introduction

For introductions see JP Hanlon's Global Airlines: Competition in a Transnational Industry (Oxford: Butterworth 1999), R E Davies' A History of the World's Airlines (London: Oxford Uni Press 1964), Rigas Doganis' The airline industry in the 21st century (London: Routledge 2001), TA Heppenheimer's Turbulent Skies: The History of Commercial Aviation (New York: John Wiley 1995), Steven Morrison & Clifford Winston's upbeat The Evolution of the Airline Industry (Washington: Brookings 1995), Anthony Sampson's Empires of the Sky: The Politics, Contests & Cartels of World Airlines (New York: Random 1984), Tae Oum & Jong-Hun Park's Globalisation & Strategic Alliances: the Case of the Airline Industry (New York: Pergamon 2000), Flying the Flag: European Commercial Air Transport Since 1945 (New York: St Martins 1998) edited by Hans Dienel & Peter Lyth and Femininity in Flight: A History of Flight Attendants (Durham: Duke Uni Press 2007) by Kathleen Barry.

As noted elsewhere on this site, the literature on individual airlines is uneven. Corporate histories, often centred on executive charisma and occasions of triumph or disaster rather than a searching analysis of markets and corporate performance, abound.

     US

They include Gordon Bethune's From Worst to First: Behind the Scenes of Continental's Remarkable Comeback (New York: Wiley 1998)

     UK and Eire

Ryanair (London: Aurum 2004) by Siobhán Creaton

     Australia

For Ansett see Ansett: The Collapse (South Melbourne: Lothian 2002) by Geoff Easdown & Peter Wilms and Ansett: the story of an airline (Sydney: Dreamweaver 1987) by Samuel Brimson.

For Qantas see John Gunn's The Defeat of Distance: Qantas 1919-1939 (St Lucia: Uni of Queensland Press 1985), Challenging Horizons: Qantas 1939-54 (St Lucia: Uni of Queensland Press 1990) and High Corridors: Qantas 1954-1970 (St Lucia: Uni of Queensland Press 1988)






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