Airport Delays, Essay Example

Airport delays occur because airport capacity is a scarce resource and, airlines are scheduling more flights than that capacity can support. As a result, more and more flights are delayed, even under normal weather conditions, and considerable costs are imposed on the traveling public. Passengers are paying, in effect, a much higher total price than the dollar price of their tickets. Describe a situation where airport operations are exceeding airport capacity (temporarily or permanently) and causing delay, and then give some proposed solutions. Ensure you back up your solutions with facts and resources.

During the holidays, it is expected that the rate of travellers would increase accordingly. Most likely, it is during this time that the influx of bookings increase [from both the online and offline selling portals of the airline companies]. When the condition of uncontrolled mandate of influx of reservations occurs, the flights are often mismanaged and somehow, reservations are cancelled and almost 50% of the flight-schedules are moved to another date (Wiegmann, et al, 2003).

To resolve this issue, creating a program that immediately updates the system for new and incoming reservations thus avoiding a distinct occurrence of intertwined schedules causing flights being cancelled later on (Kingsburry, 2007). The human operators of the said systems need to see to it that every network branch operates fully and that the warning signs for over-reservations be attended to immediately according to the increasing demand for flight services.

When instances like this occur, it is important to note that making a definite change in one’s system of information management becomes a necessity. Organizations operating in the airline industries need to embrace the fact that these IT operation-transformations are needed for them to cater to their clients more effectively (Kingsburry, 2007). Reservations, cancellations and other transactions made online should tally with the existing record in the main offices of the airlines, hence confirming that reserved flights are not compromised even during the peak season. While increasing human resource to attend to this matter is suggested strongly, if it cannot be accomplished, retraining existing staff to handle multiple tasks at one time would also help a lot in the process.

References

Kingsbury, Kathleen (October 11, 2007). “Eyes on the Skies”. Time.

Wiegmann, D. A., & Shappell, S. A. (2003). A human error approach to aviation accident analysis: The human factors analysis and classification system. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.