External Environmental Factors That Influence Wataniya Airways Performance

Topics: Airlines, Performance Words: 2037 Pages: 6

Outline

Introduction
Wataniya Airways’ profile
External environmental factors that influence Wataniya performance
Examples of stakeholders
Stakeholders judgments of the success of Wataniya Airways
Conclusion

Introduction

This paper focuses on the Wataniya Airways and the external environmental factors influencing its performance. Wataniya Airways was established in the year 2005. It was founded as a section of the Kuwait Government’s liberalization of airways services and was established by Kuwait corporations that comprised of Global Investment House and Kuwait Projects Company (Kipco). It is one of the Kuwait’s new airline industries that started it operations in the year 2009. It provides transportation services linking across the Middle East to the following countries; Syria, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Egypt and Bahrain. The company provides two types of services; premium economy and first class. First class gives 26 seats in an arrangement of two by two, having a 44 inches seat pitch. On the other hand, premium economy provides 96 seats in an arrangement of thee by three, having a 34 inches seat pinch. Wataniya airways provide several advantageous services to its customers and have plans directed to the exact needs of sensitive customers traveling to and from Kuwait. In addition, Wataniya airways offer travelers good services including comfort than any other aviation in similar airline class. Services provided in the first class include utility, personal service and the best comfort (Conditions of Carriage 2009, par.1).

Wataniya Airways in Kuwait works from Sheikh Saad Terminal, transporting exceptional levels of uniqueness, convenience and effectiveness to all its visitors. Currently, the company has 200 employees with the following people as the leaders; George Cooper the Chief Executive Officer, Chandrashekhar Nene the Chief Information Officer, David Evans the Chief Commercial officer, Ritchie Tuano the country manager and Nilufur Rehman the cabin crew. Wataniya Airways have well qualified and highly experienced personnel who provide quality services to their guests for a comfortable journey. On the ground, there are competent personnel who offer attentive help from inspection to rooming. Personnel in the board are well skilled and they offer the best broad and excellent services in the aviation. All the personnel in the Wataniya Airways go through a training programme that takes eight weeks in order to avoid failure in professionalism, courtesy and service provision (Conditions of Carriage 2009, par.1-3).

External environmental factors

Companies, organizations and business enterprises can recognize the extrinsic changes, which may influence the companies by conducting a SLEEPL (Social, Technological, Environmental, Economic, Political, Legal and Ethics) analysis. This tool assists the companies or business premises to predict the future movement of their business. For instance there are three types of environments that the managers and directors need to consider; internal environment, near environment and far environment. Internal environment focus on what happens in the company and the managers or directors have influence and control in them. Near environment comprise of clients or customers, competitors and suppliers, and the directors have no control but they can influence them. Finally, far environment focus on the things that cannot be influenced or controlled by the managers or directors of a company. Far environment includes STEEPPL (social, technical, economic, ethical, physical, environmental, political and legal factors).

Innovative technologies are very crucial if any company or organization is to develop and offer the best solutions to it customers in the competitive market place. Intelligent organizations or companies search for the most applicable technologies that befit their premises. Such technologies also apply in the airline industries and in that line, Wataniya Airways has a vision of hiring three Airbus A320. They said that the company will hire the planes for a period of nine years as from the year 2010. Some of the external environmental factors that affect its vision are the propaganda released by the Al-Qabas newspaper that the company has an interest in purchasing a part of the falling or loss making Kuwait Airways Corporation that is being arranged for denationalization. This is an example of far environment (social factors) in which the directors of the company have neither influence nor control on what other competitors say or report. In addition, Wataniya Airways have been faced by economic crisis that have been encountered by the whole world. For every business or company to continue operating, it requires money. One of the ways to make money is to ensure they always keep in touch with their customers and get new techniques on how they can attract new customers. For example the current world wide recession of economy has affected the price of the oil and indirectly, this has affected Wataniya Airways output (Business Monitor International 2008, par.1).

In addition, in the year 2007 when the managers or directors thought of introducing the airline, the situations at that time were extremely difficult. For instance, the price of the oil was very high as compared to the current price. Moreover, in the same year there were limited aircrafts and to buy new airplane from factories like Airbus and Boeing, it needed one to wait for a minimum period of five years. The other external environmental factor affecting Wataniya Airways is that it is not in a position to keep up with the rapidly increasing number of customers. This is because the Kuwait International Airport has only been extended by approximately 20 to 30 percent overcapacity on its present plan. For example, about 40 percent of the flights are supplied by buses since gates are out of stock or unavailable and bearing in mind that the weather is extremely hot this not perfect. Therefore, the airport is not big enough to serve the large number of customers (seven million), who come in annually. However, there are some development plans though things are not moving well with the rapid population growth rate. Currently, the environment is the most essential external factors that have effects on any transport system. For instance, human activities have great effects on the climate change leading to global warming. Everyone wants a well maintained environment, however there are few who are interested in managing it. Some of the emitted substances like carbon dioxide pollute the air and strategies to minimize these emissions should be put in place by the government in order to better the performance of the transportation system. This is an example of the political factors that affect the performance of Wataniya Airways (Oxford Business Group 2009, p.109).

Stakeholders of Wataniya Airways and their judgments

The five important examples of stakeholders of Wataniya Airways include Kuwait Projects Company (Kipco), Global Investment House, Peter Schmidt Group, Kale Consultants and Kuwait Airways Authority (KAA). Kale Consultants offer detailed or broad cargo and revenue accounting answers to most of the airline industries. It also offers answers to logistics industry to the whole significance chain that involves airports, carriers, container cargo stations, shippers and cargo forwarders. Kale consultants’ answers to the travel industry involve complete solutions for all journey operators. In addition, Kale Consultants assist the airline industries to recuperate their lost earnings. According to Kale Consultants, Wataniya Airways has succeeded in service provision since the stakeholder has helped them in recovering their lost revenue hence increasing their profits (AyaanBayaan news 2009, par.11).

The largest Kuwait corporate stakeholder of Wataniya Airways is the Kuwait Project Company (Kipco). Kipco owns 50 million Kuwait dinars of share capital. Kipco is well known because of its transparency, effective communications and high ethical considerations (El-Gamal 2008, par.5).

Global investment house is one of the Wataniya’s Airways stakeholders who views the airline as a success since it has managed to offer special services to its guest. These services include comfort and enough space in the aircraft. In addition, services offered to sensitive individuals have made it possible for them to attract most of the travelers to their industry. However, lack of enough space has contributed to the slow implementation of its plans since it can not accommodate the millions of people who need their services.

Peter Schmidt Group judges the Wataniya Airways services to be successful. This is because they are in a position to acquire their own aircraft. Secondly, it is the second airway to be possessed privately in Kuwait and it is still in operation up to date. Moreover, the personnel have to undergo through some training programs which takes a period of eight weeks. Trainings programs in any company has a great influence in their performance hence Wataniya Airways offer the best services because they are competent in the area of their services due to the trainings.

Finally, the fifth stakeholder is the KAA (Kuwait Airways Authority), which is the greatest stakeholder of all the airline industries in Kuwait. It is an authority in Kuwait, which regulates all the activities in the airways. It judges the success of Wataniya Airways in terms of it compliance to the rules and regulations set by the authority. Secondly, Wataniya Airways is one of the airways that remit more funds in Kuwait, which is a clear indication of its successful operations. In addition, Wataniya Airways is also responsive in that any changes made by the authority, it implements them leading to its success.

Conclusion

If at all Wataniya Airways wishes to maintain a competitive edge in the cutthroat airline industry that it has ventured into, it is important that the company embrace innovative technologies, so that it is best placed to offer its customers with the best services. Innovativeness is also a crucial factor for the airline industry, bearing in mind that the sharp rise in the oil process ends up reducing the revenues for airlines. In addition, the current global economic crisis has also greatly affected various industry, and the airline industry has not been an exception,. This is because passengers have sought to find cheaper means of transport, while others have reduced the number of flights they take per year. Environmental issue have also impacted on Wataniya Airlines, with environmentalist launching a camping that is aimed at ensuring that airlines are accountable for the pollution that they could cause to the environment. The onus is therefore on the various stakeholders of Wataniya airlines, and more so the management, to ensure that they airline comes up with sustainable strategies that will ensure that it is able to beat competition in an otherwise volatile market.

Reference

Arab Open University, n.d. Understanding Business Functions B 202. Department Of Business Administration.

AyaanBayaan News, 2009. Kale posts steady growth in FY09; Revenue grows 19%. [Online]. Web.

Business Monitor International, 2008. Kuwait Freight Transport Report Q1 2009. MarketResearch.com. [Online]. Web.

El-Gamal, R. 2008. Wataniya Airways leases planes from AerCap. ArabianBusiness.com/Arabic. [Online]. Web.

European Commission, 2000. EU Transport in Figures: Statical Pocket Book. [Online]. Web.

Oxford Business Group, 2009. Transport Overview. The Report: Kuwait [Online].

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