An article in Forbes described these characteristics of the airline industry: "Airlines aren't like normal consumer businesses... Infrastructure including aircraft, gates and runways takes years to put in place. Capacity rebalancing in response to demand shifts isn't easy and idle infrastructure of this magnitude is very expensive." Source: Kevin O'Marah, "The Lesson of the Delta Disaster: Flying Is Too Cheap," Forbes, August 11, 2016. Do the characteristics referred to in the article help to explain why the airline industry is an oligopoly? Briefly explain.

Yes, the characteristics help to explain why the airline industry is an oligopoly.

Explanation:

An oligopoly is a type of market which is comprised of a small group of firms whose services are expensive. One of the major characteristics of Oligopolies is the high entry cost of new businesses in the industry. The infrastructural, financial, and legal requirements required of new firms in this industry are so daunting that most people get discouraged from venturing into such businesses. This is the attribute described in this Forbes article. The infrastructure and logistics involved in becoming a part of the airline industry is quite expensive.

Other characteristics of oligopolies include the fact that these small group of firms take each other into consideration before setting prices or making other significant changes. They also have non-price competition. which is competition on the basis of factors other than price.

a manufacturer of printed circuit boards uses exponential smoothing with trend to forecast monthly demand of its product. at the end of december, the company wishes to forecast sales for january. the estimate of trend through november has been 200 additional boards sold per month. average sales have been around 1000 units per month. the demand for december was 1100 units. the company uses α = 0.20 and β = 0.10. make a forecast including trend for the month of january.

answer; erp systems;