Factors affecting the quality of ground services o- 123docz.net

CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ON THE AIRLINE‟S GROUND

1.2 Ground service quality of an airline at the airport

1.2.5 Factors affecting the quality of ground services of airlines at airports

Quality of service is created in the whole process of providing service of

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enterprises, starting from the design of services to the stages of organization, deployment, supply and use. Due to the complex nature of the airline's ground service concept, the creation and improvement of this service quality is influenced by many factors including subjective factors comes from inside as well as the environment outside the airline (objective factors). These factors have a close, interrelated relationship and general impact on the quality of ground services of airlines at airports.

Subjective factors

Subjective factors include: 1) Management capacity of the airline, 2) Human resource, 3) Coordination mechanism between relevant departments in the service delivery process 4) Infrastructure.

1) Management capacity of the airline

The leadership's commitment to service quality is that the leaders of the airline must support and participate in implementing the company's ground service quality management system at the airport, especially the general leadership of the company must commit to providing enough resources to perform. The commitment of leaders has an important role to play, it creates a favorable environment for quality activities in the organization, expressing their concerns and responsibilities for quality activities, thereby engaging the participation of members in the organization in the quality program. The company leader is responsible for setting policies for the quality of its ground services at the airport to satisfy customers. Successful implementation of that policy depends on the leadership's commitment to effectively implementing and operating the quality system. Customer satisfaction can only be guaranteed when there is an interaction between leadership responsibilities and human resources, material resources and the structure of the quality system.

2) Human resource

The aviation industry is a typical industry in the application and exploitation of the advances of modern science and technology in production and business activities.

But it is human who use and operate them. Human factors affect all stages in the

production process. The service quality of the airline depends very much on the professional qualifications and skills of the staff. Therefore, in order to improve the quality of services in general and ground services at airports in particular, airlines need not pay attention to improving the qualifications of employees.

The service staff is the one who directly creates the airline's impression.

Passengers know the quality of products and services of the airline through the introduction and service style of service staffs. Passengers evaluate service quality not only on product quality but also on attitudes of service staffs. The attentive, dedicated and thoughtful service attitude is the foundation of the service quality of the airline.

3) Coordination mechanism between relevant departments in the service delivery process

In order to have a complete ground service of the airline at the airport, there must be the participation and close coordination of many functional units of the airline (catering company, airline representative, ground service company, aircraft engineering and maintenance companies, flight crews, etc.) as well as related units operating at airports (airport authorities, security centers, custom department, border police, medical center, quarantine, etc.). For each related service segment, airline representatives work with relevant units (including the internal units of the airline and the outside units) to build and unify the coordination process to perform tasks, clearly define the responsibilities of each department and appropriate coordination mechanisms, ensure the provision of services according to the standards committed to customers, quickly and promptly solve problems often arise.

4) Infrastructure.

In addition to the quality of human resources, management capacity of the airline, the coordination mechanism among related ground service units in the process of service provision, facilities are also one of the basic elements that make tangible conditions help airlines achieve the best performance results, bring the highest efficiency. Facilities include: work office, related equipment such as computers, printers, scanners, rooms for employees ...

Objective factors

It is understood that the causes arising from the factors beyond the control of the airline such as weather, airport closing, war ... The objective factors often arise abnormally and suddenly. Therefore, objective factors are often difficult to overcome. Objective factors include:

(1) Economic environment

In the economies of nations, the civil aviation industry is one of the economic sectors that contain all the characteristics of the world economy: recession, recovery, growth, crisis and bankruptcy.

When the economy of a country is in crisis, the civil aviation industry is one of the largest and fastest-impacted sectors. It can be seen clearly through the financial and economic crisis of 1997-1998. The economies have been deflation, investment activities have been stalled, flights have been absent, revenue has declined at a rapid pace, forcing airlines to cut services, suspend the operation of air routes with little or no benefit profit, trying to maintain key routes through difficult times. When the economies of the countries have overcome the crisis and have signs of recovery and growth is also the time when the aviation industry has grown again. The airlines were able to expand their route network, reopen flight routes which have been forced to cut, and provide additional services and enhancing existing service quality.

(2) Bad weather, strikes, wars, epidemics

Bad weather forced the carrier to let the flight delay or cancel. This is on the one hand to ensure safety for passengers, on the other hand to minimize damage to the airline.

Strikes also make the carrier's flights delay or cancel.

If a war takes place in a country where the airline has a route to, in order to ensure safety, the airline may have to cancel the flight. Or in case the carrier has a flight route through the war zone, the carrier is forced to fly through another route. Thus, it can make the mining cost increase, the flight is longer, or the flight cannot be carried out.

The bad weather, strikes or wars, epidemics are all force majeure problems faced by airlines and it greatly affects the quality of its ground services at the airport.

(3) Technology environment

Aviation is an industry applying modern technology. To improve competitiveness in the air transport market, airlines need to constantly improve and invest in technology applied to both check-in system, flight loading, boarding control, etc, ensure cost savings, reduce manpower and shorten time of procedure. Thereby contributing to improving the quality of air transport services in general and ground services at airports of airlines in particular. Managing and maximizing the use of equipment also requires airline managers to constantly improve their qualifications.

(4) Cultural and social environment

Different from political factors, cultural and social factors affect the ground services of airlines at airports more slowly and sustainably. Airlines customers can come from many different countries with distinct cultures. To provide a perfect ground service requires the airline to train its employees to understand the national cultural identity, regional culture as well as culture of some countries in the world.

From there, employees can easily grasp the psychology of customers and have good behavior in the service process, making a good impression on customers.

(5) Political and legal environment

The target customers of air transport are mainly tourists and investors, so political stability is an especially important condition to ensure the stability of this customer market share. Political fluctuations, ethnic conflicts or beliefs ...

immediately reduce airline passengers to unstable areas, thereby negatively affecting the quality of ground services of airlines at airports. This forces the airline to reduce commercial load, reduce flight frequency even to cancel flights to ensure safety and maintain business profits.

The influence of law on air transport is very clear. All activities of the airline are subject to the law. Today's legal system and aviation policy is not only complicated but also unstable and inconsistent, making airlines often fall into passive situations in strategic planning of production and business, construction of service quality standards.

(6) International factors

In today's globalization trend, airlines are increasingly influenced by international factors. From international economic factors such as national income, exchange rate, population living standard ... to cultural and social factors in foreign countries such as language, cultural level, culture standards, habits, gender equality ... and foreign policy factors have indirectly affected the quality of ground services of airlines at airports.

(7) Suppliers

For enterprises in general, resource suppliers are always an important element of the external environment. However, for airlines, suppliers play a more special role for the following reasons:

First, aeronautical technology is often a chain with many stages, in which some of the suppliers' products and services directly constitute the airline's ground service products. This forces the airline to pay attention to the quality of the input resources provided by the partners because if this quality is reduced, immediately the quality of ground services of the airport airline will be affected.

Second, very strict standards for aviation products and services lead to high and standardized requirements for input resources. Many unusual demands for services (catering, drink, hotel ...) requires supply partners to have a backup service plan in unexpected cases arising on demand services of the airline. Resources must be provided when and where needed. In doing so, the airline representative at the airport must create a regular and trustworthy relationship between the relevant functional departments and suppliers because if the supply of input resources is delayed or in short, the quality of the airport's ground service quality is immediately affected.

Third, it is because of the monopoly position of suppliers. The specific requirements of aviation resources such as check-in counter services, telescopic bridge service on the ramp, security services have created a unique position for suppliers. Uncertainty in the behavior of exclusive suppliers inevitably affects the quality of airline‟s ground services at the airport.

(8) Customers

Airlines are highly dependent on customers - a typical element of the external

environment, while demand for air transport services is markedly seasonal. Because ground services of airlines at airports are complex, with the participation of many stages of product production and intermediate service provision, the seasonal changes in demand of customers also strongly influence the operations of the units involved in providing this service, making their activities seasonal.

The quality of the ground service of the company depends heavily on the opinions of customers. Quality of service depends on customers' expectations and real experiences. Each different customer has different psychology, experience, so the feelings and expectations are different. Therefore, the quality of the ground service of the airline at the airport depends on the customers.

(9) Competitors

When mentioning the importance of customers to the airline, it is about the competitor's role in the airline's business operations in general and its ground services at the airport in particular. In the trend of freedom and globalization, the competitive trend is increasingly fierce. The battle of competition not only takes place in the aviation service market, but also in the resource market, especially with the essential aviation resources such as aviation staffs, franchise, take-off / landing time at cargo terminals.

Factors affecting the quality of ground services of airlines at airports

Characteristics of airline’s ground services at airports

Airline’s ground service classification