Flybe Airlines: Operations Management and Customer Satisfaction Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Flybe Airlines, focusing on the role of operations management in its success and ultimate failure. It begins with a background on Flybe, its operational structure, and its commitment to customer satisfaction. The report then delves into the specific operational issues that plagued the airline, including rising fuel costs, flight cancellations, and poor after-sales service, which led to significant customer dissatisfaction. The analysis highlights the failures in the airline's design, the inability to sustain operations, and the lack of effective employee engagement. The report concludes with a personal verdict on the company's shortcomings and emphasizes the critical role of operations management in achieving customer satisfaction. It also includes a list of references.

Flybe Airlines
Problems in Operations Management

INTRODUCTION
• Company background
• Case background
• Company Operations
• Customer Satisfaction
• Reasons behind the failure of operation
• Verdict
• Summary

COMPANY BACKGROUND
• Flybe is based in Exeter, England.
• Helps in commuting
approximately 8 million people
yearly
• The company has 81 airports in
the United Kingdom,
• Was recognised as one of the
cheapest air commutation
providers in the United Kingdom

CASE BACKGROUND
• Rise in failure of Operational issues
• Rising payload and fuel costs
• Approximately 32 flight cancelled
• 1,000+ passengers affected
• Threats to sustainability of the company as Customers were
unhappy
• Transfer of ownership to Connect Airways
• Job security of pilots

COMPANY OPERATIONS
• Values of the company
channeled through value
stream
• To provide passenger with safe
and cheap commutation
• Presence of functional divisions
such as sales, manufacturing,
purchasing and marketing and
Human Resources.

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
• Hampered as a result of mass
cancellation
• Bad after-sales service
• Suffering passengers not refunded
• Angry customer vented on Social
Media
• Media attention as a result of
unfavourable Customer
Satisfaction

FAILURE OF OPERATIONS
The failure is as result of the unfavourable design of the
organisation.
• Fuel and payload prices rising
• Yet the company were marketing cheap prices of the Air
tickets
• Revenue low. Thus inability to sustain the operations.
• Inability to sustain the pilots.
• Threats of attrition

PERSONAL VERDICT
• The company aimed to satisfy the customers using
aggressive pricing
• Failed as a result of operational inefficacy
• Lack of efficiency of the HR and other functional divisions.
• Absence of grievance redressal systems
• Lack of employee engagement

SUMMARY
• One of the cheapest providers of air commutation in the
UK.
• Flights cancelled and customers unsatisfied
• Change of ownership
• Failure of Operations as a result of poor design
• Threats to sustainability of employees and organization as
a whole.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Budd, L., Griggs, S. and Howarth, D., 2013. Sustainable aviation futures: Crises,
contested realities and prospects for change. In Sustainable Aviation Futures (pp.
3-35). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
• Flybe.com, 2019. About Us :: flybe. [online] Flybe.com. Available at:
https://www.flybe.com/about-us/ [Accessed 10 Apr. 2019].
• Monaghan, A., 2019. Flybe cancels dozens of flights because of 'operational issues'.
[online] the Guardian. Available at:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/03/flybe-cancels-dozens-of-flights-
because-of-operational-issues [Accessed 10 Apr. 2019].
• Reid, R.D. and Sanders, N.R., 2015. Operations Management, Binder Ready
Version: An Integrated Approach. John Wiley & Sons.