Airline Operations

A Practical Guide

Peter J. Bruce, Yi Gao, John M. C. King, Peter J. Bruce, Yi Gao, John M. C. King

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317182979
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Written by a range of international industry practitioners, this book offers a comprehensive overview of the essence and nature of airline operations in terms of an operational and regulatory framework, the myriad of planning activities leading up to the current day, and the nature of intense activity that typifies both normal and disrupted airline operations.

The first part outlines the importance of the regulatory framework underpinning airline operations, exploring how airlines structure themselves in terms of network and business model. The second part draws attention to the operational environment, explaining the framework of the air traffic system and processes instigated by operational departments within airlines. The third part presents a comprehensive breakdown of the activities that occur on the actual operating day. The fourth part provides an eye-opener into events that typically go wrong on the operating day and then the means by which airlines try to mitigate these problems. Finally, a glimpse is provided of future systems, processes, and technologies likely to be significant in airline operations.

Airline Operations: A Practical Guide offers valuable knowledge to industry and academia alike by providing readers with a well-informed and interesting dialogue on critical functions that occur every day within airlines.

Part I
Planning for products and customers

John M. C. King

In this opening part, the authors consider a number of elements which initially may be thought of as extraneous to the work of the practical manager involved with operations. However, closer analysis shows that each of the chapters provides either operational or strategic context for the activities that an airline undertakes in doing what it does – transporting passengers and cargo. This part provides the legal and regulatory framework in which aviation operations are conducted. While domestic interstate¹ aviation in Australia is regulated only in terms of safety, many readers of this book have experienced economic and policy regulation impacting on both their domestic and international operations. Thus, the focus is on the legislative controls which are placed on the operations of airlines, their contractors and suppliers, and the airports from which they operate. The other key providers of services to the airline industry are air navigation service providers or air traffic control systems. The pricing regulation of air navigation services is an important element in an airline cost structure, but is not directly linked to the day-to-day operations of the airline and the airport.

The product in the marketplace is sometimes seen differently by different participants in the air travel business. The perception of Michael O’Leary, the CEO of Ryanair, is that Ryanair provides transportation and only transportation, whereas Etihad is providing total luxury in its ‘Residence’ first class suites. Etihad’s ‘luxury in the sky’ is seemingly incidental to the transport function which the airline and its aircraft provide. So the focus moves to the customer and consequently the market. While the customer is an individual, that customer constitutes part of the market. The passenger market for air transport has been considerably enlarged by the arrival and growth of the low-cost carrier.

There is also an examination of two business models and strategies: low-cost and hybrid carriers, as well as alliances and cross-alliance activity. While KLM was the early initiator of the sixth freedom hub, the Gulf State carriers – in partnership with the airports from which they operate and the government (which is the owner of both carrier and the airport) – have developed extensive networks and very large fleets. Alliances, both branded and unbranded, are considered and there is an extended discussion of low-cost carriers and their place in the market. The focus then changes to examining options for a carrier’s network; in particular, there is consideration of the main drivers of network design, and the performance indicators for the measurement of the success of network design are shown. Each airline will have its own specific framework for designing its network and elements of this framework are identified, drawing attention to the trade-offs between long- and short-term objectives.

Consideration is also given to the customer points of contact: the travel agents, call centres, carriers’ websites, and the airport experience. In this regard, issues of self-handling versus third-party handling are discussed. Overall attention is given to the interface between the passengers and the airline and, in particular, expert deliberation to pricing issues and revenue management. This part concludes with a comprehensive review of the airport infrastructure required, especially the terminal planning process, and shows how terminal design should meet the needs of its two primary users, the passengers and the airlines. There is also recognition of the relationships among meeters and greeters, farewellers and suppliers with the airport and its terminal. Finally, consideration is given to the importance of airport access, especially public transport.

Note

1 Some interstate routes in some states are regulated and some subsidized.

1 Regulatory framework

Ron Bartsch

The beginning of aviation

It is no revelation that aviation and regulation are intrinsically linked. It is generally recognized that aviation is the most strictly and extensively regulated industry.¹ Managing change in the context of a highly technological and rapidly changing industry has, since the advent of aircraft, been the most challenging role of aviation regulators. Since its beginning, aviation has been subject to stringent legal and regulatory control. Regulations pertaining to flights in balloons and airships had been developed and promulgated in the eighteenth century. It all began in France in the 1780s with Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier, sons of a wealthy paper-maker of Annonay. The brothers noticed that bags, when held above an open fire, grew lighter and lifted into the air. Joseph and Jacques discovered that hot air did not leak through paper. They experimented with balloons made of paper, and manufactured larger balloons capable of lifting considerable weight.

At the time, it was widely believed that altitude sickness would restrict manned ascents to within close proximity of the earth’s surface. To test this hypothesis, the Montgolfier brothers, on 19 September 1783 in Versailles, put a sheep, a duck and a rooster in a basket attached to a hot air balloon. They named the aircraft the Aérostat Réveillon. The flight, in front of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, lasted just eight minutes, covered two miles and reached an altitude of approximately 1,500 feet before crashing to the ground. The flight proved that life was sustainable in the atmosphere well above the surface of the earth with the three farmyard ‘passengers’ surviving the ordeal. The first manned flight took place two months later from the Château de la Muette in Paris on 21 November 1783.² Before a crowd of 100,000 spectators, in a paper-lined silk balloon designed by the Montgolfier brothers, scientist Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and fellow aviator the Marquis d’Arlandes soared over Paris belching out black smoke and, on descent, nearly catching fire. It was from these beginnings that structures such as the ‘Zeppelin’ airships later developed, eventually leading to the Wright Brothers’ historic flight in a powered fixed-wing aircraft in 1903.

The first aviation regulation

In 1784, the year following the first manned balloon flight, over 1,500 balloon flights were recorded in France, and it was clear with the rapid development in aviation activities that regulations were needed. The Paris police passed regulations on 23 April 1784 requiring flight permits for all future balloon operations. In 1819, the Chief of Police of the Seine introduced regulations requiring all balloon operations be equipped with a parachute. While earlier legislation focused more on addressing issues relating to aircraft impacting the ground, this rule appears to have been the first to promote safety on board an aircraft. Following the introduction of the airship to America in the early 1900s, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, Professor Simeon Baldwin, in 1909 wrote a treatise entitled: ‘Will airships change our laws?’ The publication highlighted the ramifications of airship operations upon the legal framework. Professor Baldwin raised the issue of whether airships should have the right to fly over people’s property. His view was that government regulation of airships was necessary because there was no line of authority in customary or common law to settle such disputes. Considering the extent and complexity of litigation in this area today, Baldwin displayed a remarkable degree of wisdom and foresight.

Governments throughout the world were quick to respond to the increase in aviation operations and by 1911 two of the most powerful nations, Britain and the USA, had both passed domestic aviation laws to regulate and control aviation activities. Brewing political tensions in Europe, some of which were aggravated by balloon operations infringing the airspace of adjacent states, led to even greater restrictions being imposed. As a consequence of World War I, aircraft design and technology progressed at an astonishing rate. By the end of the war, the aeroplane had developed from a flimsy single-engine biplane to large, multi-engine, alloy construction transporters. Aircraft were now capable of flying significantly increased payloads higher and further than ever before and at previously unimaginable speeds. The number of aircraft also increased dramatically. To provide context to this astonishing rate of aviation development, consider the following: at the beginning of the war in 1914 Great Britain possessed only twelve military aeroplanes; by the war’s end in November 1918 there were 22,000 aeroplanes. Civil airliners were waiting in the wings to play an important role in the advancement of world trade and commerce.

Although the commercial potential of this now vastly improved means of transportation was universally realized by states, it was more specifically the demonstrated capacity of aviation as a weapon that prompted governments to act to control this potentially destructive new technology. Immediately following the end of the war in Europe, and only six months after the commencement of the first regular international passenger air service, twenty-seven states signed the Convention Relating to the Regulation of Aerial Navigation in Paris on 13 October 1919. The Paris Convention (as it became known) heralded the beginning of international air law in confirming, virtually at the dawn of airline operations, the desire of governments throughout the world to systematically c...