...The Tale of Two Airlines- Case Analysis The Tale of Two Airlines is a case which analyses Professor Roger McPherson’s traveling experience with two different Airline carriers and how each company’s handling of the situation lead to two extremely different outcomes. The first was a connecting flight leaving from Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta to London, where Mr. McPherson was meeting an executive for a mayor power company. This flight tuned out to be a total customer service disaster and a major disappointment for Prof. McPherson, as he missed his connecting flight and therefore his meeting in London. The second flight took place a decade prior, a flight from Milan to London to connect to a flight to New York. This flight provided Prof. McPherson with an outstanding customer service experience. First, I would to start this analysis by stating that software and information systems are a very important asset for the airline industry. It’s through these various interacting systems that the airlines communicate to effectively coordinate flights - making sure that they are on schedule. Furthermore, these systems monitor air traffic, weather conditions, mechanical issues and others, providing customers with the utmost customer service experience, specially to those valued customers such as Prof. McPherson, who paid a high premium which provides certain travel privileges such as First class and early sitting among other accommodations. The effectiveness of these information systems...
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...Tale of Two Airlines: Case Study In the Tale of Two Airlines case study, Professor McPherson discussed how two different airlines handled passenger travel, and in this case, booking issues caused by weather coupled with mechanical problems which contributed to flight delays. The initial delay began when an airline arrived late to Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta, the busiest airport in the country. Professor McPherson was able to make it to the gate for his connecting flight to London, with what he thought was just enough time, only to find that the airplane had pushed back early and he therefore missed this connecting flight to make an important meeting in London. When the gate agents arrived, they happily booked him on another airline with another flight to London which should have allowed Professor McPherson to arrive only 30 minutes late. Unfortunately, this airline also experienced delays due to mechanical problems upon departure and was delayed. Only this time the airline used the technology at hand and quickly accommodated his new itinerary and forwarded him to Frankfurt since he had missed his meetings entirely in London. Professor McPherson also reflected back to a previous flight prior to the network age where he was scheduled to make a connection in London to New York, and due to flight delays was also late. Even though modern IT was not available at the time, the London based airline quickly resolved the issue. He spoke to a first class flight attendant who simply...
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...Week 8 Checkpoint: JetBlue &and WestJet: A Tale of Two IS Projects IT205 April 11, 2014 Week 8 Checkpoint: JetBlue & WestJet: A Tale of Two IS Projects The reservation system at airlines is the heart of the customer interaction and these systems helps guide the customers through the process of shopping for flights and lets the customers see what seats are available on that flight and then if they find what they want they can go ahead and pay for the tickets right then. Customers use the reservation systems to make the reservations, change reservations, or cancel reservations. They also can select specific seats on their flights, check the bags, and utilizing the kiosks located at the airports to print out boarding passes. The benefits of upgrading the system would by far outweigh any of the risk once the implementation is completed. The highest risk would be the loss of customers, this would stand true for both WestJet and JetBlue Airlines. JetBlue helped to minimize their risks when WestJet decided to be the first to upgrade and implement. WestJet went live in October of 2009 and it was horrible. They had not evaluated everything thoroughly and it showed. The bottom line is the risks involved is customer service being affected in anyway. WestJet was the first to undertake the upgrade and implementation. Their customers were having major issues with the reservation services which caused their call centers to get flooded with calls. The influx of customers trying...
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...JetBlue and Westjet: A Tale of Two IS Projects Week 8 Checkpoint Case Study Questions By: Cicely Sawin 3/21/2014 IT/205 Catherine Williams Over the past years, customers have been heavily relying on airline reservation systems to book their tickets, reserve seats, pay for the tickets and also check-in online. For customers, this has been a very convenient method and they are able to easily plan their trips. For the Airline companies, these systems have the whole flight inventory managed. They have all the flight information stored and records are maintained. It also provides a platform for communication between other airline companies for their “code-sharing plans” and agents or other ticketing offices can see real time information about the bookings and availability of seats. Since both parties rely on these systems they are of big importance to airline companies. For example, we see in the case of WestJet, the amount of chaos created after a delay of switch to another version of the system. Airline reservation systems have impacted operational activities and decision making. They have made it easier to maintain accounts with other airlines and internal processes between departments are more efficient since the “minus, plus” is done online. There has also been growth in faster service times which leads to increased customer satisfaction since customers can plan, book and pay online. Airline companies are able to make good strategic...
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...Tale of Two Airlines in the Network Age This appears to be a case where wit was very shy on the scholar’s end. Professor Roger McPherson’s assumed that the information systems at the London based airport were far better than what they actually were. It appears that he was making a pure assumption that each and every time he would fly first class, that all of his worries would be lost because of the reliability and experience he has had in the past with the very same airlines. I do believe that his assumptions were realistic for this time period only because back then the power of the internet would have not prevented the Professor from boarding the plane because most airlines in this day and age, check and see digitally if all passengers have boarded the plane before taking off. Thus his investment would have paid off as he anticipated. The reality of this situation is that in the game of connection flights, one should never schedule a flight so close together from transfer times. In this situation assuming that the flights are going to land on time and not taking into consideration that the weather or an issue with the plane can delay the time can seriously hurt your chances of making a meeting the very next day in a country across the Atlantic. Given that the year was 1995 and portable technology is almost non-existent (except for the function of making a phone call) he could not receive a text message or email stating what procedures to follow, he purely used his instinct...
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...AND VIRGIN AUSTRALIA A TALE OF CHANGING STRATEGIES Topic code and name | BUSN 3055 | Word count | 2020 | 1. Differentiated pricing is among the widely practiced Revenue Management tactics in which a firm offers its products/services at differentiated prices to distinct markets. And this tactic has been noticed by airline industry for more than four decades. Revenue Management also known as Yield Management has been well recognized as an essential practice in many businesses, and it is defined as the set of strategies adopted by a business to improve its profitability (Philips, 2005). It is among the most important applications of management science and operation research (Bell, 1998). Qantas, Australia’s foremost domestic and international carrier, established Jetstar in May 2004 as a budget airline. Its purpose is to cover the low-cost segment of the market, which began in around the year 2000 with the launch of a competitor, Virgin Blue. Until the time Jetstar began operations, Virgin Blue had been successfully eroding Qantas’s air market share, indeed with the collapsing of Ansett Airlines (Easdown, 2002), and capture around one-third of domestic airline market. In response, Jetstar was also designed to be a no-frills carrier, predominantly targeted at the leisure market. (Case Study) Market segmentation is a strategy that involved dividing the target market into subsets of consumers who have common needs and priorities. As in airline industry, marketers will...
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...and Using Information Systems, Wiley, 2006 (3nd edition) 2. A package of Harvard Business School Case Studies Additional Readings and Cases: Class handouts as needed. Course Description and Goals This course is designed to provide the current and future managers with understanding and appreciation of the issues that are related to the organization’s information technology assets. The course is not to educate technical specialists, rather, it is to give students a managerial perspective on the use of, design of, and evaluations of information systems that exist in organizations today. The objective of this course is to prepare students to manage information services in both today’s and tomorrow’s environment with its managerial, social, political, ethical and global issues. Conduct of the Course All students are expected to read the assigned materials (text, end-of-chapter discussion board questions (DBQ) and Harvard Business School case studies- HBC) before coming to the class. Some days we will discuss the materials in the text book. You are expected to be prepared to actively participate in this discussion, answering questions such as “What are the issues involved in ...?”, “What do the authors mean by ...?”, and “Give an example of...?” The second use of class time will be group presentation on the selected cases from the case study package. You will be assigned a group and lead the discussion for this activity. Those of you not assigned...
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...A Tale of Two IS Projects Business Problem-Solving Case Week 7 Upper Iowa University Week Six Business Problem-Solving Case 1. How important is the reservation system at airlines such as WestJet and JetBlue. How does it impact operational activities and decision making? The reservation system is highly important to airline companies, especially small ones. These companies must give over the top customer service in order to compete with the larger airlines. This means that when customers use their site they must be able to easily see their prices and book their flights. The reservation system will effect operational activities because it shows the number of reservations booked, and this helps to know how many planes will be needed during a specific amount of time. The reservation system also helps to know when to have special deals on flights, so that all seats may be filled (Laudon & Laudon, 2013). 2. Evaluate the risks of the projects to upgrade the reservation systems of WestJet and JetBlue and key risk factors. There are several risks to consider when evaluating the risks of the projects to upgrade the reservation systems of WestJet and JetBlue. First of all for customers there is one main risk. The consumer will either notice no difference in their abilities to book flights etc. or they will consider the operation failed, and this could upset the way they look at the airlines brand. The key risk factors to consider are the...
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...A Tale of Two IS Projects Business Problem-Solving Case Week 7 Upper Iowa University Week Six Business Problem-Solving Case 1. How important is the reservation system at airlines such as WestJet and JetBlue. How does it impact operational activities and decision making? The reservation system is highly important to airline companies, especially small ones. These companies must give over the top customer service in order to compete with the larger airlines. This means that when customers use their site they must be able to easily see their prices and book their flights. The reservation system will effect operational activities because it shows the number of reservations booked, and this helps to know how many planes will be needed during a specific amount of time. The reservation system also helps to know when to have special deals on flights, so that all seats may be filled (Laudon & Laudon, 2013). 2. Evaluate the risks of the projects to upgrade the reservation systems of WestJet and JetBlue and key risk factors. There are several risks to consider when evaluating the risks of the projects to upgrade the reservation systems of WestJet and JetBlue. First of all for customers there is one main risk. The consumer will either notice no difference in their abilities to book flights etc. or they will consider the operation failed, and this could upset the way they look at the airlines brand. The key risk factors to consider are the...
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...Week 11: JetBlue and WestJet: A Tale of Two IS Projects Ans 1: The reservation system at airlines such as WestJet and JetBlue is the heart of the customer interaction and these systems helps guide the customers through the process of shopping for flights and lets the customers see what seats are available on that flight and then if they find what they want they can go ahead and pay for the tickets right then. Customers use the reservation systems to make the reservations, change reservations, or cancel reservations. They also can select specific seats on their flights, check the bags, and utilizing the kiosks located at the airports to print out boarding passes. Ans 2: The benefits of upgrading the system would by far outweigh any of the risk once the implementation is completed. The highest risk would be the loss of customers, this would stand true for both WestJet and JetBlue Airlines. JetBlue helped to minimize their risks when WestJet decided to be the first to upgrade and implement. WestJet went live in October of 2009 and it was horrible. They had not evaluated everything thoroughly and it showed. The bottom line is the risks involved is customer service being affected in anyway. Ans 3: WestJet was the first to undertake the upgrade and implementation. Their customers were having major issues with the reservation services which caused their call centers to get flooded with calls. The main issue that plagued WestJet was not anticipating the...
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...Running Head: SECURITY ISSUES Challenging Security Issues Michael D Mckoy For Matt Keogh American Intercontinental University July 14th, 2013 Abstract This will help answer question to some of the many case studies in the AIU assignment listing. We will identify and explain how the antivirus software cripples components of a computer. What are some of the problems and causes that are associated with the antivirus will be described. Also just how secure is the cloud and what other factors can help in making sure it remains that way. Medical records and just how secure they are will be determined in the discussion as well as other factors. Lastly how important is reservation systems at two popular airlines will be discussed. Chapter 8, pg 304: When Antivirus Software Cripples your Computers. 1. What management, organization, and technology factors were responsible for McAfee’s software problem? McAfee virus scan among other technological issues were not compatible at all. It also appeared to be a lack of communication and preparation amongst his management team. They should have been a little more prepared and organized to prevent the software issues. When a system crashes and fails to reboot this could have a negative impact on McAfee as we just seen. 2. What was the business impact of this software problem, both for McAfee and for its customers? The business impact of this software problem was that companies and customers lost all of their data and wasn’t...
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...COMM 225, FALL 2015: CASE STUDY DUE: November 28, 2015, 23:55 HR, SUBMIT ONLINE IN THE DROP BOX Each group is required to solve both cases provided below (i.e., answer all 4 questions) TO BE DONE IN GROUPS OF MAXIMUM OF 3 STUDENTS FROM THE SAME SECTION (WITH SAME CONTENT EXPECTATIONS) CASE 1: Cold Stone Transforms the Ice Cream Social with Facebook By Casey Hibbard (Published November 22, 2010) (Full length article available at http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/cold-stone-transforms-the-ice-cream-social-with-faceb ook/) Ice cream has always been social. But Cold Stone Creamery has found a way to make it even more so—with Facebook. Today, Cold Stone continues to innovate outside the kitchen, recently releasing what may be the first eGift feature on Facebook, and running contests that get thousands engaged even more deeply with the brand. The payoff goes well beyond greater customer engagement; Cold Stone’s promotions add to the bottom line by moving people from their computers to physical stores. In July 2010, Cold Stone made eGifting more tangible. Now you can send Facebook friends a code for an actual ice cream creation eGift, ranging from $5 to $7, right from the Cold Stone Facebook fan page for delivery via Facebook or email. Like a gift certificate, recipients can instantly redeem the gift at any of the retailer’s American locations by showing a printout or the code on their mobile phones. For a viral effect, the eGift shows up in the recipient’s...
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...ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS Case Analysis – Tale of Two Airlines PROBLEM STATEMENT Neglect and inconsistency in applying standard operational strategies and procedures can make a significant difference in meeting the expectations of passengers, affects passenger loyalty and have potential consequences on the ability of an airline to retain existing customers and attract new ones. In the information technology age “technology is only a small enabling piece of a total service concept.” How can an airline cause information technology, operations strategy, management control, empowered/unempowered work force, and service management to come together to produce customer satisfaction and long term customer loyalty?. In analysing the case, let’s examine some of the issues that were encountered during his travel, the reasons for these issues and what could have been done differently to provide a hassle free travel experience. It is a fair expectation and assumption that when a comparison is made with quality services and the impact of the use of information technology in 1985 versus 1995 there should be a distinct difference due to the era and the stages of advancement in information technology. It is therefore assumed that whatever service was provided in the 1980’s would have been improved ten years later. This leads us to examine: * Was the assumption made by Professor McPherson to think that it was possible for the network between airlines to make it feasible for him...
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...compared with jets 115. 3. Highest employees per aircraft in the world. 200:1 whereas desirable is 130-170 :1 4. Bad management and faulty policies has brought air india to this crisis level. 5. A culture of complete sloth in administration. 6. Complete lack of ownership. 7. Lack of responsibility for results and failures. 8. Deeply ingrained corruption in all levels. 9. Instead of renting out unused iconic portions of Nariman point building , for the huge sum the debt ridden airline is paying Rs. 22 lakh each month for its upkeep , 15 of its 23 florrs are lying vacant. 10. Old gas guzzling aircrafts still running 11. Poor marketing and campaign management competitiors like spice jet and kingfisher do effective marketing. 12. Employees not paid salaries. 13. Employee strikes further taking it out of business and competitors taking advantage. 14. The airline has not posted a profit since merging with duopoly partner Indian Airlines in 2007 and relies on hand outs from new delhi to survive. Flight to survival: It needs to 1. Secure a massive debt and operational overhaul if it is to survive in a market growing at 20% a year. 2. $ 4 billion of working capital debt 3. Privatisation – free from government interference 4. To lure customers and grab market share 5. To lease some of the 14 floors lying idle in the south Mumbai to raise about $1 billion over 5 years. 6. To clear $9 billion in debt...
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