Introduction
A policy entails a course of action or decision making tool that aims at achieving a desired change or effect. In aviation context, policies support the administrative directions of their organizations as a way of changing the environment around them (Tolpa, 2012)
Policy making process in Aviation Industry
The main reason or policy creation is to provide a value creation. In addition, the core aim of every business is providing better-quality services for their customers in order to enjoy superior advantages such as increased sales and expansion in the capital markets (Tolpa, 2012). The process of making policies requires a lot of process and steps to be considered. There are three major processes that must be considered before aviation policies are made. These include the creative process, stakeholders’ engagement process and the legal/political process. This report examines the process and the factors that are put into considerations during the policy making process in the aviation industry. In aviation sector, there are many processes that have to be considered before the formulations of aviation policy. These processes play a great role in shaping and guiding the operations of the sector and that why they are deeply emphasized on. They include creative policy process, political factors and the stakeholders’ process
Creative process of making Aviation policy
Policy making process in the aviation industry starts by looking at the industry performance and its connectivity. For instance, in the UK, the aviation policies states that for the industry to prosper and attain success in the international economy, it should engage in competition with other emerging and establishing markets (Fu et al. 2011). The aviation policy also requires that the connectivity of the sector to be excellent by ensuring that that the country has vibrant airports that can hold a hub capacity of the world-class.
The political process of Aviation policy
In aviation industry, there are bills and legislations that must be integrated to guide the operations of the sector. The Civil aviation Act (CAA) is a policy that is set by the government with an aim of reforming the regulatory framework guiding the civil aviation sectors. The government policy must also be considered because it helps the CAA to ensure that they modernize their operations in order to meet the rising needs of their customers and serve them effectively (Lovelock &Wirtz, 2011).
Stakeholders process during Aviation policy Formulation
In the Aviation industry, the Stakeholders must be involved in the sector policy making, management and planning as required by the development models. Studies by (Fageda et al. 2011) indicate that stakeholder’s involvement in aviation policy making should be based on political legitimacy, consensus and pluralistic structures. During the policy making process, stakeholders engagement is focused on because it forms the framework of leading the sectors to establish effective and more realistic plans and policies. In additional, stakeholders involvement during the policy making process plays a great role in ensuring that the plans and policies are improved during the implementation stages. Stakeholder’s involvement during policy formulation in aviation sectors provides broader experiences and greater information which makes it easier in developing and implementing plans and policies that are achievable as well as new initiatives.
Models and Steps Guiding Policy Formulation in Aviation Industry
Airport planning entails master, regional and capacity planning, airspace planning and aviation forecasting. In order to come up with effective plans, policies must be formulated to play the role of planning guidance, collecting boarding, develop capacity studies and cargo data planning. To achieve planning various models and steps are used during formulation of these policies. Some of the models adopted include the Mintzberg model crafting, Hall’s Hybrid model, Porters model and McKinsey 7S Model (Kelley, 2012).
Porters Model
The Porters models encompass competitive advantages in business activities (Kelley, 2012). During policy formulation in aviation sector, this model should be taken into consideration because it provides a broad analysis on the operations that airlines should adopt to enjoy competition advantages. For instance, airlines that focus only on one area such a differentiation and particular segment will have an opportunity such as establishing and sustaining competition advantages. Aviation studies by (Lovelock &Wirtz, 2012) have shown that the Porter’s airline business model positively leads to the developments of services and products.
McKinsey 7S Model.
The aviation industry tends to be presented with great opportunities for helping them to form strategic cooperation with other aviation business globally. Therefore, this requires further engagement in the global market expansion. The McKinsey 7S Model has been applied by many aviation sectors to come up with policies that could help them in improving the performance of the aviation sector, examining the possible effects that might come up with future changes in the sector and determining the best ways to improve and implement a particular proposed strategy (Tolpa, 2012). For instance, the British Airways has used the McKinsey 7S Model to formulate policies that has helped the company to implement its organization structure and its marketing strategy. Moreover, this model has also enabled the company to form policies or discussing issues of corporate social responsibility.
Mintzberg Model Crafting
The Mintzberg Model Crafting is a management models that divides the managerial tasks into three categories: information roles, interpersonal roles and decisional roles. Policies are formulated to guide managerial process according to (Kelley, 2012) studies about strategic management. Therefore, during policy formulation in aviation sectors, this model should guide the plans and policies for managing the sector such as developing information networks and making decisions. For instance the EU has adopted the Mintzberg Model Crafting to reconnect all parts of Europe with Mega-Hub airports.
Hall’s Hybrid Model
The Hybrid model is a very significant model that is used my many aviation sectors in developing their policies and plans. The model encompasses a combination of existing single till model that guides the operations of airport operation activities both commercial and aeronautical. During policy formulation this model should be highly focused particularly when determining airport charges because it applies aeronautical activities to fix charges (Lovelock &Wirtz, 2012). This model has helped in overcoming fierce competition on the aviation markets enabling the companies to emphasize on both product quality and service quality as a way to attract more customers (Fageda et al. 2011).
Conclusion
To sum up, it is evident that policies act as the framework of any organization towards providing quality customers to the customers as a way of ensuring superior advantages and competition advantages. In aviation industries, the policies are formulated for various purposeless such as managing the operations of the airlines and airports. In additional, policies in aviation industries are formed for ensuring that the airlines access wide markets of their services so as to overcome stiff competition from other sectors. As afore noted before, there are various processes to consider before policy formations such as stakeholders, engagement, the political environment and creativity. In additional, various models such as the Mintzberg model crafting, Hall’s Hybrid model, Porters model and McKinsey 7S Model are significantly considered when forming aviation policies.
References
Fu, X., Homsombat, W. and Oum, T.H., 2011. Airport–airline vertical relationships, their effects and regulatory policy implications. Journal of Air Transport Management, 17(6), pp.347-353.
Tolpa, E., Measuring customer expectations of service quality: case airline industry, Aalto University School of Economics, Department of Information and Service, 2012
Lovelock, C. and Wirtz, J. 2011. Services Marketing. New Jersey: Pearson
Kelley, B 2012 Business Strategy Innovation – The Airline Passenger Lifecycle
Fageda, X., Jiménez, J.L. and Perdiguero, J. 2011 Price rivalry in airline markets: a study of a successful strategy of a network carrier against a Low-Cost carrier. Journal of Transport Geography, 19, 658-669.