Introduction
Qantas Airways has been in operation since 1920 when the airline was founded in Australia. The airline is well known for its comfortable and entertaining services.
Passengers who have traveled using Qantas Airways have had the experience of a lifetime given that the company has been awarded many times for its in flight entertainment facilities. The airline operates in 40 countries while serving 140 destinations (Qantas Airways 2012).
The airline has popularized the Sydney hub since it connects many destinations between North America and Australia. The company is also recognized for practicing excellence in the air transport business.
Qantas Airways is hence recognized for its design, excellence and innovation in entertainment. Customers of Qantas Airlines nonetheless face certain risks when they interact with the company. These are elaborated in this paper.
Financial risks
Passengers of Qantas Airways face the risk of financial losses if they fail to make it on time for their flights. This is the same case as for all major airlines which have strict policies to counter lateness. There is always the threat of loss of belongings if passengers are not vigilant while traveling.
Passengers can lose valuable belongings and even money if they are careless while in the middle of strangers. Even though the company is doing well in terms of prestige and flight operations, shareholders are always prone to losses because of uncertainties in the stock markets (Laroche 2003).
For instance, there was a workers strike in 2011 that crippled the airlineâs operations. The stock prices of the airline can be affected by such occurrences which affect investor confidence. Flight travel also involves many unanticipated expenses such as entertainment (newspapers/ magazines), extra food and drinks, unknown taxes and cargo charges to and from an airport.
Functional risks
Passengers of Qantas Airways face many functional risks. Passengers who pay for flights are assured of excellent services but the quality of these activities is as per the criteria set by the airline. What the managers consider quality might not please customers and so excellence is never guarantee.
For instance, the entertainment facilities installed in the airline in the form of movies and music might appeal to the youth but appear irrelevant to older passengers. Passengers of Qantas Airways carry plastic money in the form of credit cards (MasterCard/ Visa). These do not guarantee successful completion of transactions because some service operators do not accept them in their business facilities. Currency problems also affect many passengers and they may not be able to carry out certain transactions in various locations.
Passengers cannot be certain that their flights will all arrive in time so that they can get to their destinations at the desired time. Some of the functional risks are related to external factors such as unfavorable weather and violence in some regions. These affect the airlineâs ability to deliver its services to the customers (Bennett and McColl-Kennedy 2003).
When these situations occur, customers get their flights delayed and they end up arriving late at their destinations. Customers are always liable to suffer from temporal risks involving long queues in airports at certain seasons (Bitran and Mondschein 1997). The airline industry operates on seasons which are described as either high season or low season. During the high season such as around Christmas time, passengers face overcrowding and long queues when boarding flights or booking for air tickets.
Psychological risks
Passengers who are not complacent with international languages such as English, French, Spanish or Chinese might not be able to communicate effectively with flight attendants. This makes it difficult for them to ask for snacks or directions to the bathroom. Psychological factors affect how customers perceive certain situations (Shemwell and Cronin 1994).
Since Qantas Airways is based in Sydney, some passengers might not want to be associated with it. People from conservative regions such as India and the Middle East might only want to travel with Arabian or Indian airlines such as Qatar and Emirates Airlines.
They might fear that their friends and relatives might not approve of their decisions to travel in an airline that offers secular music and movies for entertainment. Business clients might also fear that their prestige might be lowered if they do not travel with airlines such as Emirates, Virgin Atlantic of KLM.
The safety and comfort of passengers traveling on Qantas Airways might be affected psychologically by the sitting arrangement. For instance, those seated at the back seats might experience smells from the bathroom while those seated where the wing of the plane is might not be able to look outside and view features through the window.
Conclusion
Qantas Airways tries to reduce the impact of these risks by elevating the quality of their services to world class standards. Likewise, the airline offers the same services offered by other prestigious airlines. The airline can however strategize on how to how to get sources of entertainment from every region or allow customers to carry their own materials while on the plane.
List of References
Bennett, R & McColl-Kennedy, JR 2003, Services Marketing: A Managerial Approach, John Wiley & Sons, Milton, QLD.
Bitran, G & Mondschein, S 1997, âManaging the Tug-of-War Between Supply and Demand in the Service Industriesâ, European Management Journal, Vol. 15, No. 5, pp. 523- 536.
Laroche M, Bergeron J & Goutaland C 2003, âHow intangibility affects perceived risk: the moderating role of knowledge and involvementâ, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 122-140.
Qantas Airways, 2012, Qantas Airways Named Top Airline For In-Flight Entertainment, viewed on <https://www.qantas.com/gb/en.html>.
Shemwell, DJ & Cronin, J 1994, âServices Marketing Strategies for Coping with Demand/Supply Imbalancesâ, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 14-24