Research Proposal: Internal & External Challenges of Qantas Airways

This research proposal aims to explore and identify the internal and external challenges faced by Qantas Airways that impact its productivity and profits within the Australian aviation industry. It outlines the research objectives, which include investigating the impact of Australia's environment on Qantas's business performance, identifying factors discouraging investors, and exploring the reasons behind Qantas's higher prices compared to its rivals. The proposed methodology involves a mixed-methods approach, incorporating a literature review, primary data collection through interviews with Qantas managers, and secondary data analysis from annual reports, news articles, and scholarly sources. Qualitative analysis, specifically thematic analysis, will be used to analyze the collected data and provide feasible recommendations for Qantas to overcome these challenges and improve overall performance. The timeline for the research is also provided.

Running head: RESEARCH IN BUSINESS
Research proposal on 'Assessing challenges of Qantas Airways'
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction and Problem Statement...........................................................................................2
2. Research aim and objectives........................................................................................................3
3. Brief methodology.......................................................................................................................4
4. Sources of secondary data, data presentation and analysis methods...........................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6
Appendix..........................................................................................................................................7

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1. Introduction and Problem Statement
Qantas Airways is the flag air carrier of Australia. By fleet size and number of local and
global destinations of flying, it is the biggest airline in Australia and Qantas also holds the record
of being the 3rd oldest airline of the world, after KLM and Avianca. The company earned revenue
of AUD 17.06 billion in 2018 and employs more than 26000 employees across the nation as of
2017 (qantas.com, 2019). Despite being the largest carrier in Australia, Qantas has been facing
quite a few challenges, which have been affecting their business performance and their profits.
The domestic as well as global aviation industry has become highly competitive in the
past decade. On one hand, the flow of inbound and outbound visitors has increased massively,
and on the other hand, the surge in the number of low cost carriers has been adding into the
market competition for the large and high priced airlines. The new airlines are capturing the
market fast with their modern fleet, comfort, inflight technology, competitive pricing,
employment opportunities, (Taumoepeau, Towner & Losekoot, 2017) etc. Larger airlines like
Qantas are often facing challenges to maintain sustainable profits while competing with the new
and low budget carriers.
It has been reported by Delibasic (2018) that Qantas has been losing its position in the
ranking of best and most popular airlines in Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asian region
and the Asian carriers are capturing the best rankings. For example, Singapore Airlines won the
title of the best commercial carrier of the world in 2018 while Qantas is out from the list of top
10 carriers for the fourth time (Raynes & Tsui, 2019). Various issues of Qantas were highlighted
by the aviation experts, such as, ageing fleet, higher price in comparison to other rival domestic
and international carriers, not-so-advanced inflight technology, aged staff, lack of employee

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engagement as Qantas does not prefer to recruit people on the full time contracts and they are
mostly outsourced by the recruitment agencies. This leads to fall in productivity. Qantas also
faces problems in upgrading their aged fleets as that would require it to change a large number of
aircraft, which is time as well as cost consuming. Thus, it can be said that to maintain its market
share and improve that, Qantas must identify the problem areas more precisely and take
according measures.
Along with these internal issues, there are many external challenges also that are
affecting the business performances of Qantas. This research study will investigate all the
internal and external challenges faced by Qantas Airlines and will provide some feasible
recommendations to overcome the challenges and improve their performance.
2. Research aim and objectives
The aim of the research is to explore and identify the internal and external challenges of
Qantas Airways that hamper their productivity and profits in the Australian aviation industry and
to provide recommendations on overcoming the challenges in a most rational manner.
The research objectives are:
 To investigate the impact of Australia’s environment on the business performance of
Qantas Airways
 To identify and examine the factors that discourage the investors in investing their money
in Qantas Airways
 To explore the factors that make Qantas charge higher price than the rivals in Australian
aviation industry

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3. Brief methodology
In order to conduct the study on identification and evaluation of the challenges of Qantas
Airways in the most systematic manner and to provide rational recommendations to the Airways,
mixed methodology will be applied in this study. It is an exploratory study and hence, qualitative
information will be collected and analyzed. The steps to be followed in this study are described
below.
 Literature review: This section is highly essential to understand the broader concept
behind the research issue and to create the context for the study (Hart, 2018). Challenges
of the global aviation industry, and in the Australian market, performance of larger
airlines such as Qantas, factors causing decrease in revenue of the airlines will be
explored from previous literatures, scholarly articles from journals, industry datasets, and
annual reports and publications of Qantas to present the literature review.
 Data to be collected: The research study will collect and analyze both the primary and
secondary data. Using both types of data is beneficial for getting a more in-depth
overview of the research issue and the findings from primary data can be validated by
using the secondary data analysis (Almalki, 2016).
 Data collection process: Primary data will be collected through an interview process. 5
managers of Qantas Airways will be chosen by applying convenience sampling technique
and they will be asked to provide insights on the research topic. Secondary data will be
collected from annual reports and publications of Qantas, news articles, government
reports and scholarly articles.

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4. Secondary data sources, data presentation and analysis processes
The study will be primarily based on secondary data on the business environment of
Qantas Airways in Australia, its challenges and business performances. Hence, large amount of
secondary information will be gathered from different authentic second hand sources. The
secondary sources include books, peer reviewed journal articles, organization’s website, news
articles and reports and publications of the aviation industry of Australia. The annual report of
Qantas will be obtained from its website and reports and articles on the company’s performance
and challenges will be gathered from online databases, publications and newspapers articles.
Qualitative analysis process will be used to analyze both the primary and secondary data.
Both types of the information will be presented in the MS Word file and qualitative analysis will
be applied on the data to get the findings. Thematic analysis method under qualitative data
analysis will be used and the information will be evaluated and presented under different chosen
themes. These themes will be chosen as per the nature of the research topic and which would be
most relevant to meet the research objectives in a logical and systematic manner. The primary
data, that is, the interview responses will also be presented under the themes and will be
interpreted accordingly. By the applying qualitative analysis process on both the primary and
secondary data, the challenges faced by Qantas will be explored and evaluated and potential
solutions to overcome the challenges will be suggested.

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References
Almalki, S. (2016). Integrating Quantitative and Qualitative Data in Mixed Methods Research--
Challenges and Benefits. Journal of Education and Learning, 5(3), 288-296.
Delibasic, S. (2018). Why Qantas is getting worse and the Asian carriers are winning. Retrieved
15 December 2019, from https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/travel/2018/07/18/qantas-
getting-worse/
Hart, C. (2018). Doing a literature review: Releasing the research imagination. Sage.
qantas.com. (2019). Qantas | Home. Retrieved 15 December 2019, from
https://www.qantas.com/in/en.html
Raynes, C., & Tsui, K. W. H. (2019). Review of Airline-within-Airline strategy: Case studies of
the Singapore Airlines Group and Qantas Group. Case Studies on Transport Policy, 7(1),
150-165.
Taumoepeau, S., Towner, N., & Losekoot, E. (2017). Low-Cost Carriers in Oceania, Pacific:
Challenges and opportunities. Journal of Air Transport Management, 65, 40-42.

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Appendix
Timeline for the research
Month
Task 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Strategy and framework
formulation
Literature review
Collection of Primary data
Conducting interview
Collection of Secondary data
Analysis of data
Findings and discussion
Conclusion and recommendation
Report submission