Mission Strategy and Goals of British Airways and Air France

Organisations in the aviation industry are prioritizing services quality at the highest level in order to achieve enhanced level of customer’s satisfaction. The level of customer satisfaction generally dictates business growth of organizations in the industry. Hence the approach of the research would be to analyze the customer service provision, comparing the case of British Airways as well as Air France as the exemplary situation. British Airways is a household name in the global aviation industry, managing to provide high quality services to the customers on a consistent basis over the past. On the other hand, Air France also left a significant mark in this particular area till now. Hence, compare the customer service provision of the foretold organizations would help clarifying the significance of customer service level in aviation industry.

This literature review is basically for solving the hypothesis that British Airways provides better customer service than Air France. For processing this hypothesis, we need to first discuss about the Mission Strategy and goals of both the Airways companies as these provides the overall review of both the companies. Secondly, we need to discuss the customer service provisions of both the companies as this will help in gaining more information and finally a comparative study will help in proving the hypothesis. 

British Airways provides its airline services globally. It commits that it provides its services in low fare with an extensive global route network. British Airways commitment follows the fact that it services globally and provides the best transportation facility in lowest prices (British Airways, 2014). British airways is one of the oldest Airways transporting service provider. It was founded on 25^th August, 1919. British Airways also maintains its aircraft and technologies with the latest technology and engineering. They plan for the five strategic goals (Coelli, 1999). Those five goals are to make the airlines according to the choice of customers; the second goal which British Airways have, is to provide outstanding services to their customers in each and every means. The third goal of the British Airways is to establish their business in the key global cities of the world. The fourth goal of the British Airways is to make a good position in London Airlines (Assaf, 2011). The final and most important goal established by the British Airways is to meet their customer requirement by providing the best faculties to their customers.

The business plan for the British Airways include the colleagues who work together to improve the performance to provide a high performance services in the market (Arjomandi, 2010). Next comes the customers, for whom different processes or strategies are prepared to provide an outstanding services to the customers. The next point to focus is the Performance, which includes the financial performance of the company as well as the shareholders. After that the focus is required to improve and maintain the performance of the quality process of the Airways and final strategy is to improve the partnership relationship of the British Airways with other airlines or the suppliers to improve the service performance of British Airways (Popescu, 2011).

Customer Service Provisions of British Airways and Air France

British Airways missions to provide the best Airline services to their customers. They also mission to establish its services globally to create a strong base of growth in all over the world. This point describes the services, goals and strategy of British Airways which help in judging its customer services. The above point is taken from the published articles by the British Airways (Gracia, 2012). According to this description, it is clear that the British Airways is totally dedicated towards providing its valuable and quality services for customers. The goal, strategy and mission of the British Airways are made and formulated according to the need and requirements of the customers. British Airways also provide an opportunity of earning money, to the dealers.

Air France also provides services of Airlines, globally. Air France was founded in 1992 and since then, the airlines has supported 761 projects globally and financed 116 projects in 2011 itself. This was a great achievement by Air France. They also runs many social programs like Street Children program. Currently, Air France is available in more than 1000 destinations in 177 countries with 15,500 daily flights (Air France, 2014).In the mission statement of Air France, they commit to attain the excellency as an airlines and along with a desire to be in the alliance of most successful airlines. This mission includes the generation of values for their employees, shareholders and customers.In the vision statement of Air France, their vision is to be a leading Airlines service provider company in all over the world by providing a good quality and valuable services to their customers.

Air France has divided its strategy into many categories these categories are Transform 2015, HUB, HOP, Air France in China, Sky team and Joint Venture. In transform 2015, Air France included the transformation strategy for the year 2015 (Air France Strategy, 2014). These strategies include the work plan for the year 2015 which included Air France projects, the motion of the company and their strategy to move up in the market. The Hub strategy includes the process related to the hub stations of Air France. Hub stations actually are the stations which joins two other stations through it. This strategy deeply related to improving the customer services. Air France China strategy included the strategy related to the business plan for improving their position in China. Sky team is a strategy related to connection of various destinations. Thus, sky team is related to the strategy of increasing the destination stations in all over the world. Joint venture is a strategy related to create partnership on contract basis with other airline companies in all over the world (Air France Joint Venture, 2014).

The research about Air France will also help in our research and hypothesis as this will tell us how the plan, strategies and goals of Air France are dedicated towards the customer service.Most of the above data are collected from the original sources of Air France. By analysing the mission, strategy and goals of Air France, it can be said clearly that it focuses on the profit and growth more than the customer service. The strategies of Air France are clearly indicating that it directly focuses on the maximization of wealth rather than the customer satisfaction.

Comparative Study of Customer Service Provision

Customer service provision for British Airways include Catering, Aircraft Product development & delivery, Worldwide Ground Product, Global Supply Chain, Strategy and prioritisation. According to the British Airways, they provide best quality food during the journey and provide high hospitality services at the time of journey to the customers. It also commit on hiring the best chefs for their airlines. British Airways is also famous for its services of Vegetarian meal. The airlines provides different food for different class of passengers. But if we see the customer’s review of food on airline quality then the reviews are not so good. So, we can say that the reviews were average. According to rating done by people, the overall rating is just greater than 5 (Airlinequality, 2013).

According to the British airways, their aircraft are very much safe, comfortable and well managed. According to the customer reviews Flyer talk, the customers also provide the same review about the craft of British Airways. The reviews provided are very much in favour of the Airways. According to the reviews, the seats were very comfortable; the interior of the plane is also good and it gives a royal feeling to the customers (Flyer Talk, 2013).

The other most important customer service provision is the complaint management and processing, and emergency service of the British Airways. According to the Airways their complaint management services are really very good as they take the customer’s complaint and emergency services very seriously but let us see the reviews of customers on tracing of lost baggage. The reviews are taken from the Please Press 1 review site. According to a customer’s comment on this service of British Airways, three baggages of a customer has been lost till now (Batra, 2013). There are various similar reviews on the luggage tracing service of the British Airways. According to those reviews, the airlines doesn’t process the lost luggage complaint seriously and sometimes they even ignore it (Please press1, 2014).

If we talk about the emergency process services then both British Airways and the customers agrees on the same point that this airlines understands the emergency of the customers. Customers provide 8 rating out of 10 to British Airways in this service (Skytrax, 2014).Overall, the British Airways provides the best quality services to their customers but in some areas customers have various types of complaint for the customer services as described above.The above topic is really necessary to discuss for examining the hypothesis as this provides the base. This topic critically examines the customer service provision of the British Airways. According to the discussion, it can be concluded that the Customer services of the British Airways are just good.

Customer Service provision in Air France also include the Catering, Emergency, Timing of Flights, Actions in case of delay, customers complaint or request processing etc. According to Air France, they process all the customer service activities very efficiently and effectively. They don’t miss any consumer complaint or service. They provide the best quality service to the customers so that they can attract more and more customers (Airline rating, 2014).The Airways provides the best catering services and a quality food to their customers on timely basis. According to Air France, the food and beverages of the company depends on the booking class of the customers. According to the reviews on Skytrax, the rating on the catering service of Air France is less than 5. This means that the customers are not satisfied with the catering facility of Air France (Consumers Affairs, 2013).

If we talk about the safety security services of Air France, according to them, they consider the safety services on priority. The aircrafts used by the Air France are made up of the latest technology which provides various safety options in case of emergencies. According to the review on airlines rating, the customers also feel the same. For safety, customers give a rating of 6 out of 7 and in terms of products they rate the airlines 5.5 out of 7.When it comes to comfort and hospitality, Air France says that each and every customer is important and respectable for them. According to the customers, in terms of hospitality, the services of Air France are very good; in terms of comfort also Air France aircrafts give lot of comfort with various facilities.In processing customer requests and emergency, Air France commits that they understand the needs and emergencies of the customers. They solve the emergency problems of the customers quickly if possible. However, customers are not much satisfied with these services of Air France.This topic also helps in processing the hypothesis as this will provide an overview of the customer service provision of Air France. According to this, Air France provides an average service to their customers. The customer processing in terms of emergency, request etc. are very slow.

British Airways and Air France are two leading Airways brand in the global market. The comparison of their customer services are as follows.

If talk about the strategies of both the airways companies, it is clear that the strategies of the British Airways are directly dedicated towards customer satisfaction. The strategies of the British Airways aim to provide the best services and facilities to their customers. British Airways always try to improve the customer’s experience while the strategies of Air France seems to be dedicated towards the growth of the company. The company always tries to increase its business. The customer satisfaction may be a part of these services. Thus, in terms of strategies, British Airways thinks more about the customer service than the Air France (Fattah, 208).The goals, mission and vision of both the companies tell the same story. In these terms also British Airways care more about customer satisfaction than Air France.If we consider the catering services of both the companies, for both the companies are not that good but according to the user reviews, British Airways is more successful than Air France.

Similarly, in terms of safety and product, both the companies care about the customer’s safety very much but Air France has gained more rating than British Airways.The customer request processing in terms of emergency or any other issue, British Airways understands the emergency of their customers and tries to resolve the emergency problems if possible. But in complaint processing, British Airways get very negative reviews, in request processing the employees of British Airways try to solve any request immediately, but Air France provides only average services in processing these requests (Communicate, 2009).Thus, we can say that British Airways provide a better customer service than Air France. British Airways aims to provide and improve its services every time by learning from their previous experiences.

Conclusion

The above literature review is the result of various studies and research. The points described above are very necessary for solving our hypothesis. According to this literature review, we can conclude that British Airways believes in providing and improving its services for the customers. Their strategies, mission and goals are dedicated for improving the customer experience; while on the other hand, Air France believes in increasing its wealth and earning profit. For accomplishing this goal, customer service and satisfaction may be a strategy or need of the goal. Thus, overall, it can be concluded that British Airways provide better customer services than Air France.

References

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