British Airways and Covid 19: Impact, Future Plans, and SWOT Analysis

This article discusses the impact of Covid 19 on British Airways, its future plans, and a SWOT analysis of the airline. It covers the product, place, price, and promotion strategies of British Airways, along with its present operations and goals. The article also highlights the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats faced by the airline.

Overview
The spared of the covid-19 has crated many issues and changes especially for the
transportation and tourism industry in form of sudden lockdown and restriction on
transportation. Covid-19 is being a global pandemic that was spared from the
Wuhan city of China during 2019 and spared across the world (Karunakaran and
Babu, 2022). Thus, to reduce the chances of infection and decrease in the number of
deaths the government of UK and other nations has called out for sudden lockdown
and strict norms and regulation on transportation. Thus, a negative impact is being
created by the covid-19 on the overall productivity level of the British Airways and
their firms in transportation sector. The British Airways is the flag carrier airline of
the United Kingdom that main headquarter of which is located London, England.
British airways tend to be the airline which is the second largest UK based carrier,
based on fleet size and passengers carried but the recent spared of global pandemic
has negatively affected its overall productivity and profit level.
Vision
The vision of the British Airways tend to comprises and includes of the brining the
change within the world along with albeit and focuses on its betterment. Further, the
vision of the British Airways also tend to includes of the offsetting and reducing the
carbon emission that is created by the domestic flights by the way of supporting local
communities. Besides this, the British airways also having a vision of the bringing the
higher level of the positivity as well as supporting the sustainability and togetherness to
bring positive change in life of people and overall society (Devereux and Wadsworth,
2022).
SWOT analysis
The use of SWOT analysis is being made to reflect about the key
strengths and weakness of British airways along with the future opportunity
and threats:
Strength
• Having a string and trusted brand image
• Being a market leader in the UK based on huge fleet size
• Effective IT integration (Bernauer, 2022).
Weakness
• Many employees issues are being faced that causes disruption to business
operation
• Lack of effective infrastructure system
Opportunity
• Plan for 4’ Business initiative to improve the customer experience
• Focus on venturing global operations
Threats
• Intense level of competition
• Brexit and covid-19 are leading reduction in productivity
Goals
The Goals of the British Airways comprises of the Becoming the leading global premium
airline that highly focuses on the customer service at every level of the journey of
passenger. Further, the overall goal of the British Airways is tend to be divided into there
broad areas:
• Global- comprise of the appeal to all passengers, whether for leisure or business
travel in order to create repeat customers (Teker and Teker, 2022).
• Premium – focus on to ensure that passengers receive the highest quality of service
where ever they encounter the airline.
• Airline – emphasis to maintain the focus on aviation with the latest equipment,
products and services
)
The past operations and starting of the British airways was tend to be started with the delivery in 1952 of the De
Havilland Comet enabled BOAC to operate the world's first pure jet services and in October 1958, with the
Comet 4, to operate the first transatlantic pure jet service. Beside this, use of the PESTEL analysis is being made
to have a better implication about the past operations of the British airways along with analysis of its external
environment and its impact on its business strategy.
Political- An issue of frequents strike from employees is tend to be faced by the British airways over the issues
such as low pay, pension issue etc. Along with this, Brexit issues has also carted many instabilities within the
business operations of the British airways by the way of loss of influence over the development of European
aviation safety agency.
Economical- Higher level of economic uncertainty is being faced by British airways that reduce the major
involvement of the UK carrier. Along with this, the spread of the covid-19 has also negatively impacted the
productivity and revenue level of the British airways (Sun, Wandelt and Zhang, 2022).
Social- the society of UK is tend to be highly dynamic in nature thus, regular innovation and creativity is being
needed by the British airways to remain competitive and profitable in its business environment. Apart from this,
an increasing level of perception in society towards the low cost carrier has been also seen that is further
diminishing the level of profitability of British airways.
Technological- it has been seen that higher level of technological improvement is being seen within the business
environment of UK that is creating higher pressure on British airways to have continuous improvement and
betterment in its business operations. Further, it has been seen that making the higher investment within the
technology would tend to support the higher customer experience along with reduction in cist to have higher
efficiency and productivity level.
Legal- a strict legal regulations is being faced by British airways especially during the times of Covid-19
comprising of many restrictions on transportation services (Subiyanto, 2022).
Environmental- the government of UK and customers are become more concerned towards the protection of
environment that is making it mandatory to look out for ways to ensure reduction in carbon mission and protect
environment for British airways.
Present operation
At present the British airways is looking out to have better decision making and strategy formulation that
supports mitigation of the risk of covid-19. Thus, at present British airways is focusing on providing regular
training to its employees to supports higher safety and healthy airline transportation for its customers. Along
with this, British airways is also tending to focus on sustainable growth through focusing on reduction in
carbon emission. Further, use of the Porter’s five farce analysis has been made to get a better glimpse and
understanding about present operation of British airways and review its competitive strength:
Threat of new entrant- a limited risk of threat from new entrant is being faced by the British airways as it
require the huge resources and investment (Stirling, 2022).
Threat of substitutes- an average level of threat of substitute is being faced by British airways as their were
limited larger size of competitors that are providing same services to customers. Thus, British airways have to
make continuous improvement and betterment in its services.
Bargaining power of Buyers- the customers of the British airways tend to be price sensitive as that are having
many options to get shift for. Thus, British airways need to offer better discounts along with other attractive
offers to attract and retain its customers.
Bargaining power of suppliers- the suppliers of the British airways includes the fuel, labours, etc. There are
few suppliers of airplanes and thus significant bargaining powers is hold by the suppliers of British Airways.
Industry rivalry- there were small number of larger organisation operating in airways industry that is creating
cut throat competition for British Airways. Thus, it need to focus on effective marketing and advertising
strategy to attract and cater larger number of customer and have higher competitive strength.
British Airways and Covid 19 Future Plans
Use of Blow stated Marketing plan is made to have a review and discussion about
the future planning of the British Airways.
Product- British Airways is the flagship airline carrier based out of UK. British Airways
offers high quality service to its customers. In simple words it is offering transport of people
from one place to another by flight as a part of its marketing mix product & service strategy.
Place- it tend to serves to more than 400 of the destinations with a fleet of 273 aircraft
which include Boeing 747s,777s and 787s. The head office of British Airways is in
Waterside near London (Liu and et. al., 2022).
Price- The tickets of the British Airways are tend to be available within the different classes
namely economy, business and premium economy. Thus, the prices of the British Airways
tend to be vary according to destinations and if booked early can be much more affordable.
Promotion- British Airways tend to have a promotion strategy of the advertises through TV
advertisements, billboards and newspapers. Along with this, it also tend to have the
promotions in a very classy and have sophistication as the message which highlights them
along with making use of social media and online platforms to reach a wider section of
society.
REFERENCES
Books and journal
Karunakaran, C.S. and Babu, A., 2022. Impact of human factors in aircraft accident mitigation and aircraft maintenance training needs in post COVID-19 aviation. Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, (ahead-of-
print).
Teker, D. and Teker, S., 2022. Performance of Airlines: A Comparative Analysis for the COVID-19 Era. In Digitalization and the Impacts of COVID-19 on the Aviation Industry (pp. 257-277). IGI Global.
Devereux, H. and Wadsworth, E., 2022. Forgotten keyworkers: the experiences of British seafarers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, p.10353046221079136.
Sun, X., Wandelt, S. and Zhang, A., 2022. Aviation under COVID-19 Pandemic: Status Quo and How to Proceed Further?. Available at SSRN 4031476.
Stirling, G., 2022. COVID-19 Related State Aid for the Airline Sector: EU Courts Not Hesitant to Remove the Commission’s Stamp of Approval. Air and Space Law, 47(2).
Liu, J. and et. al., 2022. The impact of COVID-19 on reducing carbon emissions: From the angle of international student mobility. Applied Energy, p.119136.
Bernauer, V.S., 2022. Reflections on the evolution of a long-term study of airline cultures: an interview with Albert J. Mills and Jean Helms Mills. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal.
Subiyanto, E., 2022. Excessive investment failure corporate strategy: A case study of the bankruptcy of the state-owned Indonesia airline Garuda Indonesia. Case Studies on Transport Policy.