SmoothAir is a no-frills airline that services the Midwest. Its mission is to be the only short-haul, low-fare, high-frequency, point-to-point carrier in the Midwest. However, there are several large commercial carriers offering air transportation, and SmoothAir knows that it cannot compete with them based on the services those carriers provide. SmoothAir has chosen to reduce costs by not offering many inflight services, such as food and entertainment options. Instead, the company is dedicated to providing the highest quality transportation at the lowest fare. SmoothAir’s balanced scorecard measures (and actual results) for 2013 follow:

1. What is SmoothAir’s strategy? Was SmoothAir successful in implementing its strategy in 2013? Explain your answer.

2. Based on the strategy identified in requirement 1 above, what role does the price-recovery component play in explaining the success of SmoothAir?

3. Would you have included customer-service measures in the customer perspective? Why or why not? Explain briefly.

4. Would you have included some measure of employee satisfaction and employee training in the learning-and-growth perspective? Would you consider this objective critical to SmoothAir for implementing its strategy? Why or why not? Explain briefly.

5. Why do you think Smooth Air has introduced environmental measures in its balanced scorecard? Is the company meeting its performance objectives in this area?