Executive Summary

The main goal of this paper is to create a strategic plan for British Airways based on quality strategic management ideas that could be executed over the coming years. At the same time, as the UK’s largest airline, British Airways has encountered increased rivalry in recent years and has had to fight with an increasing percentage of the marketplace being shared by a growing number of companies.

The paper begins by examining British Airways’ present internal and external environments. Several major recommendations for British Airways are proposed as a result of the strategic study. These methods are critical in helping British Airways reclaim market share in the contemporary airline market. Integration of the two approaches, namely the people processes strategy and a strategy based on technical improvements, will be used.

The people processes plan was developed using data from several company officials that show British Airways’ fall in customer satisfaction. The technical progress approach is timed to coincide with the restoration of British Airway’s existing fleet of planes, and it will help consumers have a better overall experience.

Introduction of British Airways

British Airways Plc in the United Kingdom’s largest international scheduled airline. Besides scheduled services, British Airways also provides international and local freight and courier transportation and supplementary services. British Airways flies to more than 300 destinations with codeshare and franchise partners, carrying about 33 million passengers. With about 42 377 employees and earnings of over 8.67 billion pounds sterling, British Airways is one of the major employers in the United Kingdom.

British Airways has continued to grow in tandem with the increasing competition in the airline sector since its privatization in 1987. British Airways is now regarded as one of the leading airlines in green technology adoption and environmentally friendly business decisions. British Airways was the first airline to join the European Union’s scheme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Aside from novelty, British Airways has revolutionized the way passengers fly. The airline transport service is British Airways’ core offering. British Airways strives to provide a broad array of services, such as fast and reliable in-flight service, additional entertainment options, and even a wonderful catering service, to provide a higher quality product. It focuses on giving clients liveliness.

Total Quality Management in British Airways

Total quality management is a business management philosophy that focuses on improving customer satisfaction via quality management products and services implemented throughout the organization. TQM is a novel approach to company management that emphasizes applying total quality concepts throughout the firm.

The major concept of TQM is on British Airways’ shift from a designing-based organization to one that was directed by the market. Four major reasons led to the organization’s growth: Continuous cost-cutting, a focus on offering outstanding customer service at a premium price, coalitions and partnerships to cover a rising market; invest in electronic flight tracking to maximize the profit on individual flights.

Total quality management entails efforts at all levels of an organization to create and maintain an environment in which a firm may continuously enhance its potential and ability to produce and provide high-quality goods and services to its consumers. Many firms utilize total quality management to maximize and improve their revenue and profit. British Airways uses total quality management to suit the demands and preferences of passengers, and it is also responsible for improvement initiatives. It aids in the improvement of the organization’s operational processes and procedures.

Total quality management is a strategy for increasing staff effectiveness and competitiveness at all levels. It is the essential management practice used to achieve the firm’s long-term objective and vision. It gives employees a sense of fulfillment and morale. The following is a list of the tools that British airlines employ.

Information system: The information system is critical in comprehensive quality management since it allows the company to provide various services to its customers. In addition, it provides clients with happiness by offering a variety of appealing services. The airline sector can maintain an effective and excellent connection with passengers worldwide by using information systems.

Training and development: The Corporation employs this tool to create great customer service across the organization. To give improved customer satisfaction to passengers, the British airline focuses and oversees personnel professional development. Passengers are crucial to the success and development of British airlines. Employees can deliver the greatest services to travelers through training and growth. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the staff determines the quality of British airlines. The company’s revenue and earnings can be maximized and increased if the staff is taught and competent.

Survey: It is one of the essential ways to improve and expand the aviation industry’s services. It will also aid in identifying and measuring passenger requirements, needs, preferences, and expectations in the aviation business. The British airline employs a survey tool to obtain feedback from customers and employees. The management can enhance the productivity and effectiveness of its staff by gathering reviews and feedback. It is now widely recognized that the survey approach is extremely valuable and effective in achieving its long-term goals and objectives.

Setting quality standards: This strategy is utilized by British Airways to improve and raise passenger happiness and morale. The corporation can preserve organizational sustainability using this strategy. To achieve the firm’s long-term objective and vision, the company is working abroad. To manage a prosperous business, the company must establish standards and norms.

Passengers, competitors, and even British Airways itself regard British Airways Technical Workshops as the best in the airline company. Benefits started to show up. TQM has been in place for several years. Beneficial changes have occurred in higher-level measurements that were utilized to report progress to the administration. These indicators included the percentage of elements of satisfactory quality, the number of products in the workshop that are not in good condition, and the total quantity every month. It’s worth noting that British Airways has continued to use total quality management on people, processes, and customers after implementing TQM, and the results are positive.

Challenges being faced by British Airways by applying five dimensions of SERVQUAL.

SERVQUAL, also known as Customer service quality, is an important aspect of the product/service provision. Also, with constantly identifying customers’ requirements and perceptions of service quality, service providers must analyze whether the service quality improves customer satisfaction and subsequent intents.

Responsiveness: British Airways is now experiencing problems with customer service. Consumers have consistently complained about bad treatment by employees and personnel, according to a rigorous analysis. Customers are continuously chastised about the organization’s poor services on Twitter and Facebook, the most popular social media platforms. The corporation does not engage in active customer communication. British Airlines does not provide timely service in mailing a transaction receipt or responding to phone calls as soon as possible. British Airways does not provide prompt service, such as setting up an appointment. In British Airlines, pleased consumers are not linked to higher perceived quality of service personnel’s additional effort. There is poor interaction between the employees and the customers.

Tangibility: The physical facilities, tools, and equipment utilized to deliver the service, as well as the presentation of workers and other clients with the service facility, are not a priority for British Airways. This aspect is insufficiently adaptable to British airlines in relation to the physical facilities associated with an aviation service, such as on-board comfort, seating arrangements, legroom, quality of food, and co-passengers on the flight are not considered important indicators of airline service quality.

Reliability: British Airways is unreliable because it does not involve the reliability dimension, which involves consistent performance and dependability. The British airline is unable to give quality service the first time around. The company is not following through on its commitments to customers regarding invoicing accuracy, preserving accurate records, and providing service on schedule. Customers respect service reliability regardless of the type of service acquired. Customers are not satisfied or have not built brand loyalty due to the unreliability of the product or services, particularly with British Airways purchases. There is a failure rate, inconsistency, and error occurrence in British Airlines because the service reliability framework for classifying technical reliability tools is not being considered. The organization is regarded as untrustworthy because it does not place a high value on secure transactions, maintaining promises, and excellent communication in times of crisis.

Assurance: Due to the negative experience of the British Airlines employees, customers are inevitably questioning the competence of the company’s systems and its security, credibility, and courtesy, which are lacking. Customers’ transactions are unsafe and insecure at all times because customers utilize credit cards for the majority of their transactions, with the majority of these taking places online. There is no confidentiality and security of their customers’ information because British airlines use modern technology that carries some risks, such as online account hacking, and therefore customers prefer to deal with companies that care about their transactions.

Empathy: Customers dislike dealing with British airlines because the staff is unfriendly, the system is difficult to use, and the company refuses to listen to customers’ needs and deliver considerate services. British airlines do not provide approachability variables for customers since they don’t feel more confident and comfortable in the company of unfriendly staff and systems.

The impact that benchmarking technique has on British Airways on delivering consistent and effective quality management.

 British airlines and Benchmarking: A Statistical and Qualitative Analysis All businesses are looking for ways to increase their current effectiveness in today’s competitive environment. Benchmarking is one such way of improvement that numerous businesses have recently used. Benchmarking is a method for analyzing and comparing internal business processes. The five keys to successful benchmarking are the demand for quality, business operations, constraints of Total Quality Management, external benchmarking, and benchmarking for survival. Benchmarking ensures a premium on quality in all areas and operations of a company. It isn’t confined to the most common services or products utilized by external end-users. Organizations should take a systemic perspective to their processes rather than a reactive one.

In the domestic and international airline sectors, British Airways is a global leader. British Airways began its rise to greatness in 1986, to become “the best and most successful airline corporation in the world.” This mission has served as the foundation for the company’s future success. British Airways has improved its reputation and revenues by reinventing its marketing, sales, and management approaches and significantly enhancing customer service.

British Airways’ continuing timeliness campaign has produced impressive results, with record levels of on-time flights.’ British Airways has been capable of maintaining an on-time departure percentage of 80%. To preserve and improve British Airways’ timeliness, several programs have been implemented. The ‘minus ten’ strategy is the initial initiative; departure gates are closed ten minutes before the flight to guarantee that customers are securely seated for take-off on schedule.

Customer pleasure leads to customer loyalty, which leads to continued prosperity. To live up to its new vision, ‘To be the unchallenged leader in international travel,’ British Airways aspires to meet and surpass industry standards. British Airlines is a low-cost carrier based. British Airways currently operates over a thousand daily flights and is growing eastward. For the past twenty-six years, the corporation has followed a strategy that has resulted in profits.

The use of tour operators and ticket dealers is no longer required in the ticketing procedure. This also cuts down on long check-in lines by removing actual interactions between customer support workers and customers. A booking number and proof of identity are required to acquire a valid reusable ticket that allows the consumer to board the plane promptly. This drastically reduces the number of times flights must spend at the terminal.

Through a strategic agreement with Icelandair, British Airlines has boosted its profitability. The United Kingdom’s service to other parts of the world has been expanded due to this arrangement. The airline’s expanded international capabilities have enabled it to penetrate the market.  British airways have routinely offered significantly lower fares than its competitors. Larger competitors are unable to match British prices without suffering significant losses. Because British airlines only need to carry goods for one particular aircraft, inventory and storage costs have been lowered. Due to its ability to offer more flights each day, British airway has a quick turnaround time in the field, resulting in better revenues.

The organization has been able to operate with a little staff due to high employees performance. Irrespective of profitability, British airways maintains the same amount of staffing. Employees’ sense of job stability and devotion has improved as a result of this strategy. The organization has attained this reputation by recruiting the world’s most experienced pilots. British airways have cutting-edge training centers all around the United Kingdom.

This aggressive growth attitude has minimized losses owing to impulsive financial decisions. In the airline business, British Airlines has continuously had the lowest complaints from customers. High costs and advertisements that promote high-quality, luxurious rooms and reliable service raise customers’ demands. Customers’ satisfaction plummets when huge airlines are unable to deliver these services.

British Airways is concentrating on psychological factors that affect employee satisfaction. It has also given staff more power and implemented ergonomic modifications, such as the new work center, to boost efficiency. To operate more successfully on a global scale, British Airways has developed strategic partnerships with international competitors. British Airways is a well-known international carrier with six strategic alliances. To operate more successfully on a global scale, British Airways has developed strategic partnerships with international competitors. British Airways is a well-known international carrier with six strategic alliances.

Recommendations

I suggest the SERVQUAL model as a decent scale utilized when estimating service quality in different explicit ventures dependent on my involvement in British Airways quality administration; however, it is additionally proper to pick the main measurements from a model that fit the specific assistance being estimated to get more solid and legitimate outcomes. The level of service quality and customer satisfaction is determined by the organization’s ability to meet a wide range of client needs. The relevance of service quality has prompted researchers to study it deeper across many service industries and cultural contexts. I recognize that each quality component has a varied impact on customer satisfaction and that a firm’s performance is calculated by assessing the relative perceived service quality based on customer satisfaction. Because airline service quality is crucial, various scholars have applied theories and approaches linked to service quality to the airline business.

Conclusion

The Juran Quality Trilogy refers to three essential pillars of management philosophy: quality planning, quality assurance, and quality enhancement. Quality control assesses the product innovation analysis to identify how well the customers’ requirements are addressed. Quality control uses a variety of methodologies, many of which are statistical, to demonstrate that the mechanism works properly with minimal supervision or intervention. Descriptive analysis, process monitoring, and sampling are three broad types of statistical quality control methodologies. The Juran Quality Trilogy’s principles connect quality to financial management, allowing management and employees to effectively communicate with directors about the cost of low quality and the advantages of preserving and enhancing the quality of the product. “Quality does not happen by accident,” according to Joseph Juran, and the processes he devised opened the path for the deliberate improvement of quality in product development and market creation, giving him the moniker “Architect of Quality.”