The Academic Report of British Airways

On October 22nd, 2001, the Industrial dispute between QANTAS and its employees was initiated with the offering of a new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement. This proposed an 18-month wage freeze for employees plus a sliding scale profit share scheme. Ten out of twelve unions under QANTAS accepted the terms of the agreement, barring the unions of manufacturing employees (AWU and AMWU). They were holding out for a 4-6% pay rise. On the 8th May 2002, some ten months later, the dispute was resolved when QANTAS agreed to an across the board 6% pay increase. This essay provides an in-depth analysis into the dispute, including causes, the resolution process, the role of stakeholders, and costs and benefits for all concerned.

Flight Attendants were worried about the arbitrary process MCA’s management used to resolve issues, expressly the margining of the seniority list and working conditions. This was a concern of job security.

Kotter’s 8-Step approach to transformational change begins with creating a sense of urgency. Creating a sense of urgency involves examining markets and competitive realities and identifying and discussing crises, potential crises, or major opportunities (Weiss, 2012). At its peak, Microsoft was at the forefront of computing technology. This position led to “overnight millionaires” that eventually skewed the perspective of the once eager employees. Long time executives ended up letting new employees handle everything while they waited for the next windfall. Instead of continuing a momentum of innovation, they [Microsoft] had allowed themselves to reach a plateau while the competition past them by. Innovation gave way to employees

7 The right of employees to strike in support of their bargaining demands is protected by

As for BA, their vision is being ‘the world’s most responsible airline’, their value is centred on putting people first.

The objective of this research paper is to describe how the 21St Century utilized concepts , such as corporate social responsibility in relation with triple bottom line, to shift the airline industry into becoming a forward-thinking industry embedding sustainability into their core of business operations to create shared value for business and society. I will define corporate social responsibility and areas of social responsibility in the airline industry at the beginning of the paper and proceed with how it ties into the bottom line concept. Next, I will give brief examples of airlines such as JetBlue Airways, and British Airways how they apply these concepts into their mission. In conclusion, I will express my own thoughts about how different generations based their purchases and career decisions on these concepts.

Understanding the adversarial nature of the airline industry is very important in helping us understand and evaluate British Airways' current position in the industry and how Porter's Five Forces Model can assist the company in increasing its profitability by making better strategic decisions.

How was the accompanying reading, “Re-Energizing the Mature Organization,” germane to the case on British Airways?

Another problem faced by Cathay is the conflict between its management and employees. As mentioned above, the ground crews perceived that the company has negatively affected their concerned working conditions. This conflict may be resulted from poor communication between both parties, lack of openness of the company, and failure to respond to employees needs. It is obvious that Cathay failed to respond to its crews needs. Many ground staff complaint there is an increasing amount of work and overtime works. Cathay, however, did not notice the heavy workload among the staff. Thus, there is felt conflict appears among the affected employees, who have negative emotions, may create hostility, mistrust, and negative interpretation to the company.

BA’s product in essence relates to the flights offered. However, the product can be drilled down into specific areas ranging from the airport lounges around the world, the ‘extras’ that you can buy on board such as model BA aeroplanes or even package holidays. Each of these has been specifically tailored to meet customer expectations (which are highlighted in the section of the report titled ‘target market’). This part of the marketing mix focuses on how BA’s products are managed and in the Guardian case study article titled ‘BA, Iberia and American Airlines tie-up heralds new era of transatlantic travel’ dated 06/10/2010 it shows how BA have made an executive decision to link their websites with other companies to have the possibility to offer a higher number of routes (products) to their potential customers.

British Airways (BA) is a company that encountered several difficulties back in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The poor performances of the organization, was leading the company to failure. BA was offering a service that even though it accomplished the mission of the company, was not providing customer satisfaction. The organization was not taking into consideration the needs of the costumer and was not providing an acceptable customer service experience. “Productivity at BA in the 1970s was strikingly bad, especially in contrast to other leading foreign airlines” (Jick, Peiperl, 2010, p.28). Due to numerous changes, the company increased their revenues and became a respectful and well know organization.

The lack of change management is apparent as management did not communicate thoroughly and reassure staff there would not be turn-overs and pay cuts. The changes in perspective such as organizational development, change management, sense making, from the strikes are key issues to understand. Because all employees who operate the airline’s frontline operation staff were unintentionally not involved, the organizational plan to increase in efficiency by implementing the time card swipe system, resulted in a disaster, an employee walkout.

The new group will combine the two companies in the UK and Spain and will enhance their presence in the international long haul markets while retaining the individual brands and current positions of each airline. British Airways and Iberia hope their new company International Airlines Group, International Airlines Group, will position the pair for further consolidation in the global airline sector as it emerges from a prolonged industry downturn and hope to compete with multinational rivals Air-France-KLM and Lufthansa.

At British Airways’ Main Hub, it employs over 76,000 employees. British Airways has made a break through special training for their employees. They have been given a three-day course to “focus on leadership, teamwork, self-esteem, and leading to an increased sense of confidence.” (Madar, 2015)

Classic Airlines has grown to an organization of 32,000 employees since starting operations. Last year the company recorded $10 million profit on $8.7 billion in sales. While the airline is profitable, the stock prices have decreased by 10% in the past year and employee morale has been at its lowest due to increase scrutiny on the airline industry from all sectors of the economy. (Classic Airlines, 2008) Classic Airline's customer loyalty is on the decline as evidenced by the 19% decrease in the number of Classic rewards members and 21% decrease in flights per remaining member. The company is also facing a restrictive cost restructure due to overly optimistic expansion plans based on anticipated