Q. Would you consider an airline company as an MNC? Does their business outside of their homeland classify them as an MNC?

This is an interesting question because there are several different ways in which one could decide whether a business is an MNC or not.

1. One way to define an MNC is to con­sider the number of countries it is present in and clearly by this metric one could think of most decent sized airlines as MNCs. Air Canada would be an MNC by this metric.
2. Another perspective is to examine where the majority of a businesses, an airlines in our case, revenues arise? Is it from its home market or from international markets? A business with more than 50% of its revenues coming from outside its home market is generally considered to be a multinational corporation. Thus, major airlines like British Airways and Cathay Pacific, would be considered to be MNCs using this metric.  Perhaps large US based airlines such as US Airways would not make it as an MNC on this metric as their revenues are largely from flights within the US.
3. Still another way to decide if a business is an MNC is to consider the customer mix of the business. Is it for instance mainly people from the home country of the airline who patronize the airline, both flying abroad and coming home, or is the mix of customers significantly international. Thus, we could easily conclude that Singapore Airlines is an MNC by this yardstick as the majority of its passengers are not Singaporean. Air India, on the other hand, is patronized mainly by Indians flying to various destinations from India or flying back home from around the world. Thus by this metric Air India would not be considered an MNC.

 Since there is no one agreed upon definition of what makes a business an MNC, you are at liberty to choose the one that makes the most sense to you. Importantly, these perspectives apply to not just the airlines industry, but can be applied more broadly.  Thus, consider a resort located in just a few places, as the Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts  were, just a few years ago, were they then an MNC? By the number of locations, three at the time, they would not have been classified as an MNC.  However, in terms of the profile of their guests, who came from Asia and Europe, and to a lesser extent from the Americas, they certainly would have been considered to be an MNC.

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