Key Decision Areas in the Aviation Industry

Key decision areas in operations strategy

The aviation industry is characterised as one of the most competitive markets around the world today (Amoako-Gyampah and Meredith, 2007). Moreover, it is influenced by several aspects and environmental factors as well. There are several key decision areas that the company pays attention to. They have been discussed in the following paragraphs.

Maintaining the fuel prices and the resultant ticket prices is one of the main decision areas for the company. Even though the aspect of fuel prices is not in control of the company, however, it is an important decision area for British Airways (Anand and Ward, 2009). This is mainly due to the reason that it influences prices that the firm can charge from its customers in the name of ticket prices. Oil prices change on a daily basis and sometimes even on an hourly basis. On days when the demand is high, such as during and near holidays, the ticket prices are higher because the oil prices are also high (Barney, 1991). This is an important decision area for managing and maintaining the operations mainly due to the reason that if the company pays a too heavy price for oil, then its cash reserves would be influenced, along with its overall brand image in the market as well. Moreover, higher oil prices mean that the cost of flying for BA also increases in a proportionate manner (Bollen, 1989).

Another very key area of decisions for effective operations management of BA is that of quality management. It is an essential part of the company’s operations (Schroeder, Shah and Peng, 2011). Since this market is hyper-competitive in nature, it can be said that the firm needs to pay attention to the way provides high-quality services to the passengers, along with ensuring that they have a safe and satisfactory flight. For both, Royal Air Maroc and SN Brussels as well, this is a key operational decision area. Importance of this decision for the firms can be understood through the fact that the aviation market is a very competitive industry. This means if the quality is not maintained, then it can have a negative impact on overall operations of the firms and can also hamper the customer satisfaction rate (Slack and Lewis, 2015). The management at BA has to take decisions like determining the types of services to be provided to the passengers. Furthermore, the airline also has to make decisions with regards to training and development of the employees as well, along with maintenance of the aircraft and other such aspects (Choi, Cheng and Zhao, 2016).

The business operations can be segregated into four main processes that transform the resources into outputs (Hitt, Xu and Carnes, 2015). These are volume, variation, variety and visibility. In the context of BA it can be said that the volume of flights, as well as the number of seats on the aeroplanes, is high. One of the main reasons for this is the fact that BA has one of the largest fleets of aircraft in the world. This also gives the company the ability to provide variation to the passengers, along with a variety of planes and a variety of services on board. Furthermore, the company also enjoys high visibility in the market, as it is one of the popular airlines in the world today (Galindo, Research and 2013, n.d.). On the other hand, this is not exactly the case with Royal Ari Maroc and SN Brussels, as even though they are international airlines, they do not have the same amount of exposure or the same number of aircraft in their fleet (Peng et al., 2012).

British Airways is the airline company of the United Kingdom. It has its headquarter in Waterside which is nearby its main hub at London Heathrow Airport, and as set up, it is the biggest airline of UK on the basis of a number of international flights and international destinations it has (Subramanian and I, n.d.). It has its second centre which is London Gatwick Airport. According to the examination, it was discovered that The British Airways Group was molded on 1 September 1974. English Airways was framed by the combination of two enormous London-based carriers, British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) and British European Airways Corporation (BEA), and two littler aircraft, Cambrian Airways Cardiff and Northeast Airlines Newcastle upon Tyne (Amoako-Gyampah and Meredith, 2007).

BA as per the examination was found as the main two carriers to work the supersonic Aerospatiale-BAC Concorde initiating the world's first supersonic traveller administration in January 1976. BA turned into the world's most business carrier following its procedures under the trademark "The World's Favorite Airline" (Choi, Cheng and Zhao, 2016). The primary exercises of British Airways Plc and its auxiliary endeavours are the technique for global and local arranged air administrations for the deportment of travellers, cargo and mail and the office of subordinate comforts. In an industry which is very nearly its decrease stage where no development is obvious. It is exceptionally hard for any aircraft to get by without fortress and supportable upper hand, which can give them economies of scale that they can use (Anand and Ward, 2009).

British Airways has got some major upper hands over the whole carrier industry: Brand Image, Partnerships and Alliances, Financial size and soundness, Terminal 5. BA's system is exceptionally client centre and ceaseless help improvement (Barney, 1991). With these upper hands, they separated their administrations and distinctive estimating methodology for each section top of the line, business, and economy. As an exceptional aircraft BA's client divided and BA's promoting blend is marginally extraordinary for every fragment. English Airways has marked its first African codeshare with Royal Air Maroc (Hitt, Xu and Carnes, 2015). The understanding will offer travellers progressively decision among Heathrow and Marrakesh, just as everyday access to Royal Air Maroc's centre in Casablanca, which isn't as of now served straightforwardly by BA (Slack and Lewis, 2015).

The codeshare comes as Royal Air Maroc gets ready to join the Oneworld collusion on April 1. BA has likewise affirmed that it intends to include two additional flights seven days from London Gatwick to Cape Town in South Africa from Jan. 10, 2021. The new administrations will imply that travelers will be to look over 19 flights per week to Cape Town from London, close by 14 to Johannesburg and three to Durban (Galindo, Research and 2013, n.d.). The extra Cape Town frequencies come after Virgin Atlantic declared designs to relaunch constant day by day trips between London Heathrow and Cape Town from October. The occasional course worked by three-class Boeing 787-9 dispatches on Oct. 25, supplementing the transporter's current help to Johannesburg (Peng et al., 2012).

Operations Performance and Cumulative Capability - British Airways

Operations Performance and Cumulative Capability - Royal Air Maroc

Operations Performance and Cumulative Capability - SN Brussels

The Boeing Company and British Airways reported today that the aircraft would be the primary dispatch client for the Global Airline Inventory NetworkSM, creative new assistance wherein Boeing will oversee British Airways' flexibly chain for extra airframe save parts utilised in its armada of Boeing planes. This incorporates parts from Boeing just as different providers. A superfluous part is one that is ordinarily supplanted as opposed to fixed after use (Barney, 1991). These range from clasp and sections to floorboards and plane skins. The Global Airline Inventory NetworkSM is intended to assault expensive stock wasteful aspects in the aircraft business, where the two carriers and providers cause additional expenses on account of copied conveyance channels and pointless stock levels (Slack and Lewis, 2015). The aircraft business overall expends $7 billion every year in airframe save parts to help Boeing planes. Industry reads demonstrate that for each $1 of extra parts stock, carriers spend an extra 35 pennies on stock holding and materials the executives' costs (Choi, Cheng and Zhao, 2016).

The Global Airline Inventory NetworkSM offers the two aircraft and their providers an increasingly proficient gracefully chain with cost investment funds for every single taking an interesting part.

Boeing will be liable for the buying, stock administration and coordinations for an aircraft's extra airframe parts (Subramanian and I, n.d.).

All airframe parts will be "forward conveyed" by Boeing at or close to the carrier's place of utilisation. Contingent upon the part, forward arrangement might be to a Boeing territorial circulation place or to the aircraft's office (Bollen, 1989).

Boeing and different providers will possess the airframe parts that are forward conveyed until they really are utilised. A carrier will just compensation for parts as it utilises them, fundamentally diminishing the aircraft's stock holding costs.

A graceful chain of the executive's framework will fill in as the "war room" for the system, checking carrier stock use and permitting providers to all the more likely figure request and plan creation as needs be (Choi, Wallace and Wang, 2018).

The current Boeing save parts conveyance framework, with seven territorial dissemination, revolves far and wide, will be the foundation of the system (Anand and Ward, 2009). Boeing exclusive parts, these circulation habitats will presently stock other providers' parts also, making a solitary parts-appropriation channel.

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References

Amoako-Gyampah, K. and Meredith, J.R., 2007. Examining cumulative capabilities in a developing economy. International Journal of Operations and Production Management, 27(9), pp.928–950.

Anand, G. and Ward, P.T., 2009. Fit, Flexibility and Performance in Manufacturing: Coping with Dynamic Environments. Production and Operations Management, 13(4), pp.369–385.

Barney, J., 1991. Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1), pp.99–120.

Bollen, K.A., 1989. Structural Equations with Latent Variables. Structural Equations with Latent Variables. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Choi, T.M., Cheng, T.C.E. and Zhao, X., 2016. Multi-Methodological Research in Operations Management. Production and Operations Management, 25(3), pp.379–389.

Choi, T.M., Wallace, S.W. and Wang, Y., 2018. Big Data Analytics in Operations Management. Production and Operations Management, 27(10), pp.1868–1883.

Schroeder, R.G., Shah, R. and Peng, D.X., 2011. The cumulative capability ‘sand cone’ model revisited: a new perspective for manufacturing strategy. International Journal of Production Research, [online] 49(16), pp.4879–4901. Available at: