Introduction
Flight cancellations, lengthy lines, piles of misplaced baggage, and strike threats have frequently plagued the airport that boldly announced development plans and charged its patrons a steep premium. Operational inconsistencies like this are referred to as disruptions (Alderighi and Gaggero, 2018). In one of the biggest airports in the United Kingdom, Heathrow Airport, there has been a persistent problem with luggage delays and a staffing deficit (Efthymiou et al., 2019). As the airport grappled with delayed planes and a lack of baggage handlers, reports and images of travelers standing in line for hours appeared (Akhtar, 2022). The company currently suffers from understaffing problems in the baggage department, which resulted in operational problems like prolonged check-in lines, security concerns, problems with baggage claims, and IT problems that cause aircraft delays and flight cancellations.
In the case of Heathrow, there was a failure to provide efficient services, which can be explained by queuing theory. The arrival time, service and departure processes, the waiting regulation, the lineup size, and the customers being serviced are the six components that make up a line as it is studied employing queuing theory (Gelhausen et al., 2019). According to such theory, it can be claimed that Heathrow was unable to predict the queuing size and available staff members effectively.
Moreover, aside from queuing theory, airports must adhere to the Aircraft Recovery Problem (ARP), which helps navigate crises. The airline must intervene to fix scheduled flights, airplane timetables, crew timelines, and customer routes to lessen the impact of these interruptions (Hassan et al., 2021). However, the central dilemma of Heathrow was in labor relations and recruiting, which pushed the system to its crisis level (Başpınar et al., 2023). Now, due to such inefficiency and the following cancellations and service charges, Heathrow Airport is experiencing due to all operational issues.
Measures of Heathrow Airport
At the moment, Heathrow Airport strives to implement several changes to ensure smooth operations. British Airways put a two-week hold on selling short-haul flights out of the airport (Strauss and Georgiadis, 2022). Moreover, to limit additional travel inconvenience, the airport took the extraordinary step of capping the number of flights per day until September (Strauss and Georgiadis, 2022). Although the airport claimed to be protecting vacations, there was an intense backlash. Therefore, such measures were not successful since, while benefiting some, they did more harm to others.
Another measure, which is among the company’s main initiatives, involves automation and the incorporation of technologies. However, their report claims that changes will be implemented fully only by 2040 (Heathrow, 2022-b). In addition to highlighting the need for reform, the existing issues of personnel shortages, lengthy lines, delays, and disgruntled passengers additionally provide the potential for automation (McKinsey and Company, 2022). Despite having a staffing shortage, airports and airlines may take advantage of this situation to automate and digitize (Sun et al., 2020; Drljača et al., 2020). Future systems will respond automatically, with minimal human involvement and no delays, to problems including congestion or late passengers (Kazda et al., 2022). With the optimistic goal of allowing passengers to go to and from the plane in minutes without conventional check-in queues, the neighboring Terminal 2 is Heathrow’s most contemporary development. However, even though passengers had checked in online, they still needed to stand in the long United Airlines line to get through US security (The Guardian, 2022). Improved predictability and passenger experiences will result from this intuitive and human-like computer vision.
Lastly, Heathrow strives to recruit more personnel and open new spaces to reduce congestion. The company began recruiting in November last year to prepare for capacity recovery for the summer months (Heathrow, 2022-a). To expand the customer service staff and provide customers with more room, the corporation reopened Terminal 4 and transferred 25 airlines there (Heathrow, 2022-a). Therefore, out of the changes that can be seen immediately, so far, this one is the most effective.
Human Resource Issues
Finally, regarding the human resource issues in British Airways, human capital theory can be first reviewed to understand how HR should work. When used in the context of organizations, the human capital theory contends that employees who receive proper training and development will become more productive (Bratton et al., 2021). Moreover, they will have a better skill level than those who do not and may justify a pay raise (Lanza and Simone, 2020). However, in the case of British Airways, there are significant issues that impede proper training, recruiting, and retaining of staff.
The first issue is that British Airways fails to recruit needed staff quickly. During a legislative inquiry on the travel disruption, the company said over 3,000 potential hires are waiting on background checks that could take a minimum of four months (Ryan, 2022). The second issue is poor training, which leads to poor performance at Heathrow Airport. A potential employee has criticized British Airways over accusations that they went to the UK to work as a flight crew only to have their training delayed by months, the day before the scheduled launch date (Boyd, 2023). Thus, British Airways fail to ensure efficient approaches to recruiting, training, and retaining its team members.
Conclusion
Overall, considering the queuing theory Heathrow was unable to accurately forecast the size of the line and the staffing levels. The company’s check-in and check-out procedures are being automated and digitalized as one of its primary efforts. Future technologies will react automatically to issues like traffic or late passengers, with little to no human intervention and no delays. According to the human capital idea, people who obtain the right training and development will produce more. However, significant problems with British Airways prevent the appropriate hiring, training, and retention of employees.
Reference List
Alderighi, M., and Gaggero, A. A. (2018) ‘Flight cancellations and airline alliances: Empirical evidence from Europe’, Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 116, pp. 90-101. Web.
Akhtar, S. (2022) ‘Heathrow Airport boss warned about staff shortages 9 months before chaos began’, MyLondon News. Web.
Başpınar, B., Gopalakrishnan, K., Koyuncu, E., and Balakrishnan, H. (2023) ‘An empirical study of the resilience of the US and European air transportation networks’, Journal of Air Transport Management, 106, 102303. Web.
Boyd, M. (2023) ‘British Airways trainee claims they’re ‘jobless and miles from home’ due to admin ‘shambles’’, Mirror. Web.
Bratton, J., Gold, J., Bratton, A., and Steele, L. (2021) Human resource management. U.K.: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Drljača, M., Štimac, I., Bračić, M., and Petar, S. (2020) ‘The role and influence of industry 4.0. in airport operations in the context of COVID-19’, Sustainability, 12(24), 10614. Web.
Efthymiou, M., Njoya, E. T., Lo, P. L., Papatheodorou, A., and Randall, D. (2018) ‘The impact of delays on customers’ satisfaction: An empirical analysis of the British Airways on-time performance at Heathrow Airport’, Journal of Aerospace Technology and Management, 11, pp. 1-13. Web.
Gelhausen, M. C., Berster, P., and Wilken, D. (2019) Airport capacity constraints and strategies for mitigation: A global perspective. U.K.: Elsevier Science.
Hassan, L. K., Santos, B. F., and Vink, J. (2021) ‘Airline disruption management: A literature review and practical challenges’, Computers & Operations Research, 127, 105137. Web.
Heathrow. (2022-a) ‘Heathrow implements capacity cap’. Web.
Heathrow. (2022-b) ‘Heathrow strategic brief’. Web.
Kazda, A., Badanik, B., and Serrano, F. (2022) ‘Pandemic vs. post-pandemic airport operations: Hard impact, slow recovery’, Aerospace, 9(12), 810. Web.
Lanza, A. and Simone, G. (2020) Strategic human capital: Creating a sustainable competitive advantage. U.K.: Edward Elgar Publishing.
McKinsey & Company. (2022) ‘The snap back of travel: Airlines’ ability to keep pace’. Web.
Ryan, C. (2022) ‘BA says 3,000 hires stuck in system as UK travel chaos continues’, Bloomberg. Web.
Strauss, D. and Georgiadis, P. (2022) ‘Heathrow struggles with fraught post-Covid labour relations’, Financial Times. Web.
Sun, X., Chung, S. H., and Ma, H. L. (2020) ‘Operational risk in airline crew scheduling: do features of flight delays matter?’, Decision Sciences, 51(6), 1455-1489. Web.
The Guardian. (2022) ‘Queues, cancellations, chaos: What has gone wrong at Heathrow?’. Web.