Analyzing the Key Challenges in Emirates Airways' Business Operations

This report examines the key challenges currently facing Emirates Airways, a prominent airline in the UAE. The analysis focuses on three primary issues: employee behavior, premium pricing strategy, and pilot shortages. The report highlights the importance of addressing employee behavior, which includes customer service and cultural sensitivity, as a critical factor in maintaining the airline's reputation and competitiveness. It also assesses the impact of the airline's premium pricing strategy, especially in relation to competition and the needs of various customer segments. Furthermore, the report investigates the shortage of pilots and its consequences on the airline's operational efficiency and profitability. The report concludes with recommendations for Emirates Airways to improve its organizational performance and maintain its competitive edge in the long term, including the need for better management strategies, employee training, and a review of its pricing and human resource policies.

Running Head: Challenges in Emirates Airways
Emirates Airways
Report
System04104
7/31/2019

Challenges in Emirates Airways
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Executive Summary
The Middle East region plays smart role in aviation industry by providing world’s best class
airways company such as Emirates Airways and Qatar Airways etc. Emirates Airways is the
premium airline company of UAE. However, the Emirates Airlines currently facing some
serious issues related to its management and business operation. One of the serious concerns
for the Emirates Airways is to manage the employee’s behaviour in the organisation.
Behaviour of ground staff and cabin crewmembers is the serious issue that shows the poor
organisational culture of Emirates Airways. The other two major issues are related to its
pricing strategy and shortage of pilots in the company. The top management of Emirates
Airways is required to work on these challenges and improve the organisational performance
so it can compete in the long term with its competitors in the Middle East region. Emirates
Airways is known for its better management strategies and employment policies but the
above issues shows the mismanagement and poor decision making of the top-level leaders in
Emirates Airways.

Challenges in Emirates Airways
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................1
1. Introduction.........................................................................................................................3
1.1 Overview and History of the Company............................................................................3
2. Issue No. 1: Employee’s Behaviour...................................................................................3
3. Issue No. 2: Premium Pricing Strategy of Emirates Airways and Leadership Roles.........4
4. Issue No. 3: Pilot Shortage and its Effect on the Profitability of Emirates Airways..........6
5. Conclusion and Individual References on Lesson Learned................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8

Challenges in Emirates Airways
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1. Introduction
Emirates Airways is known for its quality services in all over the world and it is one of best
airline company of United Arab Emirates (UAE). This report has been prepared to know
about the current challenges and issues in Emirates Airways. This report also helps to
understand that what are the reason and consequences of the issue on the company. The
report included three major challenges that company face and a short conclusion, which is
based on the challenges.
1.1 Overview and History of the Company
Emirates Airways is one of giant airlines of United Arab Emirates (UAE). Emirates Airways
is a subsidiary of ‘The Emirates Group’, which is own and managed by the Dubai investment
corporation. The Emirates group started its airways operations in 1985 with only two
aircrafts. However, today this company is known for its biggest fleets of Airbus like Boeing
777s and A380s (Emirates Airways, 2019). Emirates Airways is known for its best services
and comforts for the customers in affordable prices. The company has wide range of
networks and it operates its business over 155 destinations with 265 aircrafts. The company
operate its business more than 80 countries around the world and over 1500 flights depart
from Dubai airport each week to different part of the six continents (Emirates Airways,
2019). The company is continuously focusing on increasing the number of flights and
destinations.
2. Issue No. 1: Employee’s Behaviour
Leadership and management is the major thing in any type of organisation. Emirates Airways
is the largest and one of the good image holder airways company in the Middle East. No
doubt, the management played a crucial role in managing the company and uses excellent
techniques and decision-making in the company to make it one of the successful airlines in
the Middle East. The company adopted a unique management and behavioural pattern in the
organisation, which motivates and influence the people in the organisation (O’Connell and
Bueno, 2018). However, the major issue is that the company is failed to control the
employee’s behaviour in the organisation. Here, the main problem is related to managing the
behaviour of employees. On frequent basis, company reported issues and complaints against
their employees that they are not behaving in ethical or proper way with the customer. Here
management failed to control the behaviour of employee in the organisation. One of the other

Challenges in Emirates Airways
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issues in the organisation that people who belong to different part of the world or having
different religion or culture are not treated fairly by the employees of Emirates Airways and it
is one of the serious issues in the company (Al Ameri, 2013). It not damages the reputation of
the company rather it also affects the business performance of Emirates Airways in future.
This is the major reason in last few years that Emirates has witnessed a decline in the demand
even after continuous growth in the airline industry. The Emirates airline should look for
these organisational issues, which are related to employee’s behaviour and their unethical
acts within the organisation (Orlady, 2019).
Emirates Airways is a competitive airways company of UAE and to operate this business
successfully the organisation needs to provide training to its employees and control their
unusual behaviour with the customers. The company uses different management style for
managing the people in the organisation. However, company is using both participative and
strategic management style and it is really beneficial for the company. Although the
behaviour of employees and behaviour of cabin crew members is a serious concern for the
company (Allnutt, 2017). Therefore, the company needs to provide cultural and behavioural
training to its employees to act in professional ways with the customers. However, here lack
of training and professional approach is found to be absent in the company which may affect
the image of the company in the long term (Scharfenort, 2017). Although company uses
participatory approach of management, in which it provide opportunities to all its employees
to contribute in organisational decision-making and operations. Nonetheless, despite being
the leader of the company failed to monitor the behaviour of ground staff and cabin
crewmembers, which is crucial in any type of business.
3. Issue No. 2: Premium Pricing Strategy of Emirates Airways and
Leadership Roles
The major management strategy of Emirates Airways is to expansion of the business
operation every year despite being decreasing demand and decreasing number of customers.
Here the approach of management is to continuously raising the capacity of the company and
increases the number of Airbus fleets in the business operations. The Emirates Airways
generally focuses to include the large airline fleets such as A380 and Boeing 777 airbus fleets
(Babić, Tatalović and Bajić, 2017). These airbus fleets are so costly and there is a huge
amount needed for the company to purchase these aircrafts. The unfilled seats in the flights
are a serious issue for the company. The leader needs to attract people with an effective

Challenges in Emirates Airways
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business strategy that attract customers towards the services of Emirates Airways. (Redpath,
O'Connell and Warnock-Smith, 2017). This is the reason that Emirates Airways charges high
premium prices for its services from the customers. The premium pricing strategy of the
company helps the other competitors to stay in the market because they are charging low fare
from the customers and provide affordable services to the customers. The upper level
management should take correct decision about this issue. Most of the A380s Airbus fleets
are used to shuttle workers from Asian countries like India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh to the
Middle East country (Henderson, 2014). These people are looking for low cost fare and
economy flyer to travel. Therefore, the organisational strategy to charge premium prices from
this customer is useless and ineffective. The top management of the company should review
this premium pricing strategy of the company. Apart from this, the top management of the
company is failed to maintain a good relationship with other competitors because of its poor
industrial relations. This also affects the image of the company among its customers.
Maintain a good corporate image with a great bonding with other players in the market is the
key of success for any organisation (Bose and Mugambi, 2017).
The leaders are the strategy makers in the Emirates Airways. Therefore, it is essential for the
company to review their pricing strategy, especially for South Asian countries like India,
Pakistan, and Bangladesh, because there are huge number of people travelling every day from
these countries for the job in UAE and other Middle East countries (Stanley-Price, 2018).
However, the company is providing best services to the customers and it will enable the
company to stay competitive in the airline industry, but pricing strategy should be reviewed
by the company to enhance the position of Emirates Airways in the global market (Logothetis
and Miyoshi, 2018). Apart from this, the leader of the company needs to personalise the
services of the company according to the need of customers and it will be better if the
Emirates Airways personalised the services according to the customer needs and
requirements. The large fleet size of the company increases the operating cost of the company
because most of the seats are unfilled in the flight and it will lead to high operational cost for
the company. The company can reduce the price of the tickets by using the small fleets for
those destinations where there are less number of customers for Emirates airways (Nataraja
and Al-Aali, 2011).

Challenges in Emirates Airways
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4. Issue No. 3: Pilot Shortage and its Effect on the Profitability of
Emirates Airways
Emirates Airways is the biggest long-haul airline and it required large number of pilots and
cabin crewmembers for its operation. Here, the HR group of the company failed to identify
the required number of pilots, which are needed for business operations. Dubai based
Emirates Airways is currently facing challenges related to pilot shortage which directly
affects the profitability of the company. The CEO of Emirates Airways Tim Clark accepted
this reality in last year that Emirates Airways is currently facing issues related to pilot
shortage and company will try to recruit required number of pilots in upcoming days. The
shortage of employees and pilots directly related to company’s operations and its success
(Kotsi and Michael, 2015). Currently the Emirates Airway required 100-150 pilots to meet
the demand tom operate current number of flights in the Emirates Airways. Therefore, the
role of top management is so crucial to identify the number of pilot required for the effective
business operations and recruit them for increase the profitability of the company. This shows
the poor human resource strategy of the organisation, which is essential to meet the
organisational requirements (Nsour, 2019). However, this issue shows the internal
mismanagement of the Emirates Airways, where the HR department failed to assess the need
of pilots for the organisation. The salary packages and facilities given to pilots are also a
questionable mark for the Emirates because number of pilots moved to China or in other
countries where the paid higher than Emirates. The less number of crewmembers and
shortage of pilots is a serious concern for the Emirates Airways and this problem must be
solved on the priority basis (Blessing and Abubakar Umar, 2017). Although the CEO Tim
Clark clarified, many times that Emirates Airways is still working on resolving the issue and
this is a kind of mismanaged in the organisation that will be solved by the top management
(Nsour, 2019). However, tough competition in airways industry and high salary paid by the
other competitors are also a challenge for the company to hire new pilots in the Emirates
Airways.
It is also crucial to consider that Emirates Airways is facing problems related to oil price
rising and it directly affect the operational cost of the Emirates Airways. It has been seen that
Emirates Airways is operating those flights in which seats are unfilled. It means the Emirates
Airways to review about such number of flights and adjust the number of pilots accordingly.

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5. Conclusion and Individual References on Lesson Learned
In conclusion, it can be said that Emirates Airways is one of the popular airlines company of
UAE but the behaviour of its employees with the customers is always a serious concern for
the company. If the company will focuses on providing proper training to the ground staff
and cabin crew members, this issue can be resolved by the Emirates Airways (Morrison and
Mason, 2016). However, from the above study I have learned that the role of top management
cannot be ignored because they have to work with the employees to provide them better
organisation culture and profession training to treat the customer in respectful ways. Another
concern for the company is to review the pricing strategy of the Emirates Airways. From the
study of this problem of the company I have learned that the premium pricing strategy of the
company provides the opportunities to other players to attract customers with low cost fare
and affordable services. The poor pricing strategy of the company can adversely affect the
profitability of the company in future (Banerjee, 2013). Hence, the managing of the Emirates
Airways needs to review the pricing strategy and personalised the fare according to the need
and demand of the customers. The company can decrease its fare for those South East Asian
countries such as for Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, or Bangladeshi people. The third challenge
for the company is to recruit pilots and cabin crewmembers for its flights. From this problem
I have learned that the mismanagement in the organisation can lead to shortage of employees
and poor performance of people. Shortage of pilots also shows the failure of HR department
which was failed to identify the required number of pilots and cabin crewmembers for
Emirates Airways. In my opinion, the tough competition and better salary from the
competitors is a challenge but if the Emirates Airways will provide better facilities and salary
packages to the new recruited pilots, this issue can be easily resolve.

Challenges in Emirates Airways
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References
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