British Airways: Impact of Business Decisions on Aviation Staff Report

This report analyzes the impact of a recent business decision by British Airways to increase flight frequency and passenger capacity on its staff. It examines the effects on various roles, including airport customer services, cabin crew, engineering, pilots, and ground operations. The report highlights potential negative consequences such as increased workload, demotivation, and staff turnover. It then recommends leadership and management approaches, such as participative leadership and Maslow's need motivation theory, to mitigate these negative impacts and improve employee motivation and performance. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of proactive management strategies to address organizational changes within the aviation industry.

Managing People in Aviation
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Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK...............................................................................................................................................1
Business decision taken by British Airways:...............................................................................1
Impact of decision on staff:.........................................................................................................2
Recommendations for minimising the negative impact:.............................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5
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INTRODUCTION
British Airways is an airline company based in London, United Kingdom which was
founded in the year 1974. It is one of the leading company in the aviation industry with a fleet
size of 284. The company currently has about 45,000 employees with around 4,000 pilots and
16,500 cabin crew members (Stolzer, Halford and Goglia, 2015). Every decision of the
management is bound to have a signifcant impact on the staff. This project report aims at
understanding the implications of the management decision of British Airways to increase the
flight frequence and in-flight passanger capacity to figth competition on the various staff roles of
the company with a recommendation of how the company can apply management and leadership
approaches to counter the problem and negative impacts of this management decision.
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TASK
British Airways is regarded as the second largest airline in UK on the basis of number of
passangers carried and size of fleet (Grundy and Moxon, 2013). Over the years of its existence,
the company has gone through many changes related to the organisational sturcture, operations,
business expansion, training and development, brand construction and a lot of other important
changes. Every change in structure or operations of the airlines is bound to have a significant
impact on the staff and the members of the company. It is expected to influence a change in
everything including their job description to working shifts and hours. Employees are generally
resisting to any change in the organisation which they expect is going to change their job routine.
Here is a brief analysis of a recent decision taken by the management of British Airways.
Business decision taken by British Airways:
The management of British Airways recently decided to expand its business activities and
increase the frequency of flights in certain routes to fight the competition in the industry. The
additional flights were to be operated during the peak time when there is a lot of demand in the
business world. The rationale behind this business decision was that an internal survey conducted
by the company presented a business opportunity for the same routes in which the company
currently operates by offering additional flight frequency to attract a larger customer base and
derive higher revenues (Darbyshire, 2012). Along with the additional flights, the current capacity
of the flights is also proposed to be increased by engineering crafts in a better way to
accommodate more people with the same or better level of comfort. The decision is taken after
considering the business of the airports of some of the biggest business hubs like London,
Edinburgh, Leeds etcetera..
Impact of decision on staff:
The proposal of additional flights and increasing in-plane capacity will definitely have an
impact on everyone who is related with the company from ground staff to the cabin crew. To
understand the implication of this change on the staff, each and every role is considered in brief
relating to the business decision:
Airport Customer Services: An increase in the business acitivity would directly lead to an
increase in the magnitude of work assigned to the airport customer service staff. This might be
an opportunity for some people to work harder and get extra points for promotions and could
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well be a factor for employee motivation. If the workload of additional business acitvity is
proposed to be handled by the existing staff for customer service, it would cause some conflicts
and might lead to a negative impact on the employee performance however, an increase in the
compensation could be a solution to overcome this challenge.
Cabin Crew: Cabin crew of any airline is the repsrentation and face of the company for the
outside world. It is the duty of the cabin crew to make the passangers feel comfortable and safe
during the flight. The management decision of additional flights and in-flight capacity increase
would increase the working shifts and the workload of the employees. It might be demotivating
for the employees considering the current conflicts of the airline with the cabin crew and pilots
(Taylor, Moore and Byford, 2019). An increased flight capacity would mean more number of
passangers to cater to which might not be encouraged by the cabin crew due to a direct increase
in the workload.
Engineering: Increasing the flight frequency would mean an increased use of the current
aircrafts and planes which will lead to more problems and routine-checks in the engineering and
proper functioning of the plane. It is the duty of the engineering team to make sure that every
plane is safe for flight and journey before it takes off. Increasing the capacity of the existing
flights also need some changes in design and structure of the aircrafts by the research and
development team while ensuring that there is no change or hindrance in the functioning of the
plane. It will increase the work pressure on the engineering team and might demotivate the
employees. This might hinder their performance efficiency and effectiveness causing staff
turnover and low rate of employee retention.
Pilots: Increasing the flight frequency will increase the number of flights taken per week by
a pilot since it is not economically viable for the compant to appoint new staff and pilot for every
additional flight. British airways is facing some serious conflicts with the pilots relating to the
pay-scale and the cost of training and development for moving on to a bigger craft to be borne
the pilots (Mahmood, Basharat and Bashir, 2012). During such a time, this change in the
operation of the company which will result in workload of the pilots might not be very
encouraging and is expected to create a staff turnover with lots of pilots switching to other
airlines. To motivate the pilots, a direct increase or benefits which makes this change desirable is
to be sought.
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Ground operation & Cargo: The decision taken by the management of British Airways to
increase the operations and acitivity with the help of additional flights would result in an
increased activity on the ground and the airports increasing the pressure on the ground staff. To
motivate employees to willingly support this change, management needs to incentivise the
employees with direct monetary benefits. Increased in-flight capacity would mean rush hours
during the same flight hours.
Corporate & Support staff: Support staff and corporate managers and employees of the
company are the ones who will actually execute this business idea and management-decision.
Though, this team of employees is not directly related to the flying activity but is very vital for
ensuring no hindrance in forms of corporate governance and rules and legislations for the airline.
This change might be the motivation for them to make a business idea execute and increase their
performance and efficiency in desire of the upcoming promotions and rewards. However, some
employees might not feel encouraged with the change in their job routine to a more challenging
job of implementing a whole new prospect.
Recommendations for minimising the negative impact:
The above analysis proves that every decision of the management which results in a
change in the job description of the employees is expected to face resistance and might lead to a
demotivation and discouragement among the members. According to the participative style of
leadership, a manager should always encourage the participation of the employees in every
aspect of decision-making which is expected to have a direct impact on the staff. It boosts the
employee morale and motivation (Merkert and Morrell, 2012). Being included in the process of
decision-making makes the employee feel more valuable and increases the sense of
belongingness. In aviation industry, a demoratic and participative form of leaderhip is guaranteed
to increase the employee perfromance and motivation since the respponsibility of the decision is
assumed by the employee himself as an important part of decision-making. Ownership of
decisions makes the employees more willing to contribute to its effectiveness. The management
of the British airlines should encourage employee participation in every decision-making related
to the implementation of additional fligths and increasing in-flight capacity. This would
definitely have a better impact and mitigate the negative impacts of this management decision.
Another important theory which can be very effective in this business scenario and situation is
that of employee motivation and morale by Maslow. Maslow’s need motivation theorie
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identified five categories of needs and suggested that an employee can only be motivated after
analysing the current need segment and adding factors which lead to fulfillment of those needs.
The management of British Airways, to increase employee motivation and performance with
respect to this management decision, should analyse the current needs of the employee which
may be money, social status, security etcetera and should offer an opportunity for the employees
to fulfill those needs by succesful implementation of this managerial decision and trying to adapt
to this change. This theory is significant for inducing the desired motivation in the employees in
any business situation and industry (Stewart and Mueller, 2013). For every increased workload
or pressure, manageemnt should increase the compensation and the benefits associated with the
job in direct proportion to motivate the employees. Hence, the leadership and management
theoires studied above can be of great help for the British Airways to mitigate the negative
impacts of this decision and increase the postivies associated with it.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded on the basis of above report that the decision of the management of
British Airlines to increase the flight frequency and flight capacity is expected to have some
negative impacts on the staff of the company like increased work-pressure and decrease
performance efficiency resulting into a staff turnover and low rate of employee retention
(Schneider, Spieth and Clauss, 2013). It can also be concluded that the management can mitigate
the negative impacts of this business decision to a great deal by applying various approaches of
leadership and management which help in increaisng employee motivation and reducing the
resistance by staff for any organisational change.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Darbyshire, M., British Airways PLC, 2012. Aircraft passenger seat. U.S. Patent 8,313,060.
Grundy, M. and Moxon, R., 2013. The effectiveness of airline crisis management on brand
protection: A case study of British Airways. Journal of Air Transport Management. 28.
pp.55-61.
Mahmood, Z., Basharat, M. and Bashir, Z., 2012. Review of Classical Management
Theories. International journal of social sciences & education. 2(1).
Merkert, R. and Morrell, P.S., 2012. Mergers and acquisitions in aviation–Management and
economic perspectives on the size of airlines. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics
and Transportation Review. 48(4). pp.853-862.
Schneider, S., Spieth, P. and Clauss, T., 2013. Business model innovation in the aviation
industry. International Journal of Product Development 12. 18(3-4). pp.286-310.
Stewart, M.G. and Mueller, J., 2013. Terrorism risks and cost‐benefit analysis of aviation
security. Risk Analysis. 33(5). pp.893-908.
Stolzer, A.J., Halford, M.C.D. and Goglia, M.J.J., 2015. Safety management systems in aviation.
Ashgate Publishing, Ltd..
Taylor, P., Moore, S. and Byford, R., 2019. Cabin Crew Conflict-The British Airways Dispute
2009-11.
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