Evaluation of American Airlines' Oasis Project: IT Project Management

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the American Airlines Oasis project, examining its failure through the lens of IT project management principles. The report begins with a detailed background of the company and the project, highlighting the project's goals and scope. It identifies and justifies the criteria used to evaluate the project's success or failure, focusing on stakeholder satisfaction as a key metric. The report then delves into a thorough analysis of the Oasis project, discussing the factors that led to its downfall, such as poor planning, inadequate risk management, lack of communication, and strategic deficiencies. Specific issues like seat size reduction, removal of entertainment screens, and small bathrooms are examined in relation to customer dissatisfaction. The analysis is supported by relevant literature. The report concludes with several recommendations for American Airlines, suggesting improvements like better seat design, entertainment options, and bathroom facilities to enhance customer satisfaction. The report emphasizes the importance of customer-centric decision-making and effective project management in the airline industry, drawing insights from the Oasis project's shortcomings.

Running head: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PROJECT MANAGEMENT
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................2
Background of the Company and Project..................................................................................2
Identification of Criteria.............................................................................................................3
Analysis of the case....................................................................................................................5
Recommendations......................................................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction:
IT project management is the procedure of supervising the plan, organising and
accountability in order to accomplish the goals of information technology. (Fubini, Garvin
and Knoop 2017).
The report deals with the background of the company and the project case. The
Company selected for the report is American Airlines and the case chosen is the Oasis case.
The project deals with the identification, discussions and the justification of the criteria in
order to measure the project that is chosen. The project provides an analysis of the cased
based on the criteria that are identified. Lastly, the report provides a fruitful recommendation
to the company in order to make the project successful.
Background of the Company and Project
The American Airlines Group Inc is a holding organization. The primary business
activity of the company is operations of network carrier of air, offering air transportation for
the passengers those are scheduled (Bilotkach, Rupp and Pai 2017). The Company operates
via the segment of America that offers transportation of air for the cargo and passengers. The
cargo division of the organization provides a wide range of freight and services of mail with
various facilities and interline connections those are available across the world. Altogether,
with the regional subsidiaries of airlines and third-part carriers, the airlines operate 6700
flights per day to various destinations across the world.
The project Oasis was a project that was undertaken by the American Airlines. The
goal for the Project Oasis did not sound bad at first. The main aim of the airlines was to
harmonize thee fleet of 304 Boeing 737-800 aircrafts and major parts of the 219 Airbus
A231-200 aircraft by the installation of same arrangement of seating across the aircrafts
(Renold, Kuljanin and Kalić 2019). Once the project was finished, the airlines belonging to

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the American Airlines will have aircrafts having easier scheduling of time. It will also have
swapping aircrafts when there will be an issues of operations.
Identification of Criteria
There are various criteria by which a project can be measured. The criteria of
measuring a project include schedule, quality, cost, satisfaction of the stakeholders and
performance against the case of business (Frefer et al 2018). However, in this project case the
criteria that will be chosen in order to measure the project are satisfaction of the stakeholders.
The stakeholders are the passengers of the American Airlines. They are also called as
external stakeholders (Castro et al 2019). The project has been a huge failure for the
American Airlines. The criteria main criteria of failure that have been discussed are
satisfaction of the stakeholders. The other factors or criteria that have led to the failure of the
project include inadequate management of risk, lack of detail in planning of project, lack of
communication and lack of strategy. The project managers of the project have not properly
managed the risk of the project. The risk includes installation of the seats and the other bad
decisions of the project managers. The planning of the project has not been properly done and
this is the reason, the project has been a failure. The decisions were taken in a hurry without
keeping in mind the customers. Lack of communication is an important criterion of the
project. The company or the project manager should have communicated properly with the
stakeholders both internal and external before putting the action into implementation. They
should have taken the view of the customers regarding the seats or any changes in the
aircraft. Lack of strategy in the project and the project manager of this project did not have
any strategy while planning or implementation of the project. The strategy should have been
making the seats small of the aircrafts but keep the entertainment screen and made the
washrooms bigger. Then, the customers would have satisfied. Because of all these reasons,

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the project has been a complete failure and after few days, the project had to be dropped by
the American Airlines.
The criteria that is chosen for this project is the planning. The American Airlines
could not properly plan the oasis project and this is the reason the project was a complete
failure. The passengers were not at all happy with the planning of the aircrafts that is seats
were made smaller and the entertainment screen was removed, more number of seats was
added to the executive class and the bathrooms were made smaller. The American Airlines
should have planned to make the aircrafts more advantageous to the customers
(Thirunavukkarasu and Nedunchezian 2019).
Analysis of the case
In the project Oasis, the customers were not at all satisfied. The American Airlines
could not satisfy the customers and they had to cancel the project Oasis. The main issue that
the various passengers had was the number of seats at which the American Airlines decided
to harmonize these aircrafts. All the Boeing 737 of the American Airlines would get 12 extra
economy seats (Cook and Billig 2017). To achieve this, the American Airlines required
squeezing pitch in economy to 30 inches in each of the rows and minimizing pitch extra-
legroom of the Main cabin of the American Airlines to 33 inches. Therefore, the seats of
extra-legroom will have less pitch than the standard seats of economy on the JetBlue
aircrafts. The passengers were not at all happy with these modifications as the seats were
small and they could not sit properly.
The alterations to the aircraft of Airbus A321 would install 3 to 9 seats per aircraft.
The seats of Legacy American Airlines would be increased from 181 to 190 seats and the
former US Airways Aircraft would be increased from 187 tom 190 seats. However, there
were no alterations made in the first class seats, but in the A321, aircraft added a fifth row in

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the first class seats (Karlins et al 2017). In additional to the compression in the pitch, The
American Airlines decided to remove the screens of entertainment inside the flight but in
place of the screens, personal holders for the devices were devices. These were the main
reason, the customers were not satisfied when the seats were made smaller and the
entertainment screens in the aircrafts were removed. This made the passengers more
dissatisfied (Renold, Kuljanin and Kalić 2019).
In addition to these, the American Airlines installed smallest lavatories on the jets.
Both the attendants of the flights and the passengers complained about the bathrooms as they
were cramped. The bathrooms measured just 24 inches from one wall to another. The sink
that was installed in the flight was very small and the passengers had problems with the
whole ecosystem (Kishi et al 2019).
Therefore, due to all these reason the customers as well as the attendants of the flights
were dissatisfied and the project was a failure. The main reason of the failure was the small
seats in the economy classes, the installation of more seats in the first class that was much
more bigger, removal of the entertainment screens from the aircrafts and the small bathrooms
in the aircrafts (Kulkarni, Yadav and Nikraz 2017). In other words, the project was a failure.
However, there were few positivity in the project that is power outlets were installed and
overhead bins that were larger were added.
Recommendations
The project Oasis has been huge failure for the American Airlines due to bad
decisions and they did not keep the passengers in mind. In order to make things work out in
the future, few things can be recommended to the American Airlines. First recommendation
that can be recommended to them is to keep the seats same or reduce the number of seats and
make the seats bugger. If the customers get good services, they will travel at higher prices

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also. The American Airlines can increase the prices of the fare and they will have an increase
in the revenue. The next recommendation that can be provided to the American Airlines is to
install the entertainment screens and remove the holders of tablets. It will provide them more
space for the seats and the passengers will be happy to watch the entertainment in the screens.
The next recommendation that can be provided to them is to increase the length and the width
of the bathrooms so that two person at a time can visit the bathroom. The sanitation must be
good
Conclusion
From the report, it can be inferred that the project Oasis has been a failure due to poor
decisions of American Airlines, as they could not provide good services to the passengers on
board. The report provides an overview of the Company American Airlines and the project
case that is the Project oasis. The report identifies, discusses and recognises the criteria of
success or failure of this project. There are various criteria in order to measure a project but
for this project the criteria selected in satisfaction of the customers. The report provides a
justification of the chosen criteria. The report provides an analysis of the project Oasis and
the decision that had been wrongly taken by the American Airlines. Lastly, the report
provides some recommendations to the company so that they make the project a success.

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References
Bilotkach, V., Rupp, N.G. and Pai, V., 2017. Value of a platform to a seller: Case of
American Airlines and online travel agencies. Available at SSRN 2321767.\
Castro, M.S., Bahli, B., Farias Filho, J.R. and Barcaui, A., 2019. A contemporary vision of
project success criteria. Brazilian Journal of Operations & Production Management, 16(1),
pp.66-77.
Cook, G.N. and Billig, B., 2017. Airline operations and management: a management
textbook. Taylor & Francis.
Frefer, A.A., Mahmoud, M., Haleema, H. and Almamlook, R., 2018. Overview success
criteria and critical success factors in project management. Industrial engineering &
management, pp.2169-0316.
Fubini, D.G., Garvin, D.A. and Knoop, C.I., 2017. Merging American Airlines and US
Airways (A).
Karlins, M., Koh, F., McCully, L. and Chan, C.T., 2017. 26 Expanding teamwork beyond the
cockpit door: An Integrative Program. Aviation Training: Learners, Instruction and
Organization.
Kishi, N., Chiba, M., Tsujii, T., Shimomura, T., Kogiso, N., Morizawa, K. and Arai, T., 2019.
Methodology and organizational design to realize the system integration necessary for the
development of commercial aircraft. In APISAT 2019: Asia Pacific International Symposium
on Aerospace Technology (p. 866). Engineers Australia.
Kulkarni, A., Yadav, D.K. and Nikraz, H., 2017. Aircraft maintenance checks using critical
chain project path. Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology.

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Renold, M., Kuljanin, J. and Kalić, M., 2019. The comparison of financial performance of
airlines with different business model operated in long-haul market. Transportation Research
Procedia, 43, pp.178-187.
Renold, M., Kuljanin, J. and Kalić, M., 2019. The comparison of financial performance of
airlines with different business model operated in long-haul market. Transportation Research
Procedia, 43, pp.178-187.
Thirunavukkarasu, A. and Nedunchezian, V.R., 2019. Relationship between Service Quality
and Customer Satisfaction in Airlines Industry. Academy of Marketing Studies Journal.
Wongleedee, K., 2017. Customer satisfaction in the airlines industry: comparison between
low-cost and full service airlines. Актуальні проблеми економіки, (1), pp.218-222.