Recent orders
Tarmac Delays (PLG1)
A few isolated incidents involving air carrier irregular operations have necessitated governmental
intervention into the area of passengers’ rights. Occasionally, situations can arise where ground
(tarmac) delays occur either before takeoff or after landing. Takeoff delays could be caused by
severe weather in the departure area or air traffic congestion, while delays after landing are
usually a result of ramp congestion and/or poor gate utilization. Because of a few extreme cases
where passengers have been “trapped” on an aircraft for hours on the ground, the FAA
developed rules that airlines must follow in the event that an extended tarmac delay occurs.
Airlines guilty of violating those rules face very stiff penalties in the form of fines.
Read Tarmac Delays/FAA, (https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumerprotection/tarmac-delays) and then review the associated 14 CFR rules at Electronic Code of
Federal Regulations/Government Publishing Office. (https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?
SID=c327ec1c760c8a98e3e37f6fb85854d1&mc=true&node=pt14.4.259&rgn=div5)
Search online, and choose one of many examples where an airline was fined for violating the
FAA’s Tarmac Delay rules. In a short paper, critically analyze the situation, and make
recommendations that might have mitigated the predicament. Your paper should start with a
recap of the circumstances that caused the delay.
Be sure to address these questions in your analysis:
Were there avoidable operational breakdowns at the OCC or the local station – or was this an
unavoidable situation?
Once involved in the delay, did the airline do anything to mitigate the impact on the passengers?
Would greater use of NextGen technologies (as described in the FAA video included in the
module resources) have improved the situation?
Your paper should conclude with your recommendations on how the situation could have been
better managed.
Your paper will include a title page, 2–3 pages of text, and a reference page – all APA formatted.
An abstract and table of contents are not needed for a paper this short.
Your paper will automatically be evaluated through Turnitin when you submit your assignment in
this activity. Turnitin is a service that checks your work for improper citation or potential
plagiarism by comparing it against a database of web pages, student papers, and articles from
academic books and publications. Ensure that your work is entirely your own and that you have
not plagiarized any material!
Save your assignment using a naming convention that includes your first and last name and the
activity number (or description). Do not add punctuation or special characters.
Overview
Busy tarmac with many planes.Air carrier operations involve some of the most complex
processes in the world and connect over 20,000 city-pairs worldwide – that’s double the service
that was available just 24 years ago. Worldwide annual passenger numbers have exceeded 4
billion per year and continue to grow, especially in countries like China where aviation is seeing
record growth. Maintaining normal operations at an airline is not an easy task, especially when
there are numerous areas of vulnerability. In this module, we will study normal air carrier
operations – how the job gets done day in and day out. We will also analyze various problems
that can disrupt the normally smooth-flowing system and look into areas where carriers are most
vulnerable to disruption. A carrier’s ability to work around an irregularity and return to normal
operations as soon as possible is crucial to their operation and, hence, their profitability
Module Objectives
Upon successful completion of this module, you will be able to:
Recognize why air carriers are vulnerable to upsets. (LO 3)
Describe various methods air carriers can use to return to normal operations after an upset to
their system. (LO 3)
Critically analyze unfamiliar material in the area of air transportation. (LO 8)
Demonstrate appropriate selection and application of a research method. (LO 9)
Prepare written reports in the required format. (LO 9)
Airline Irregular Operations
As you have seen in this module, irregular operations can be caused by several issues: weather,
exceeding pilot flight time or duty day limits, mechanical breakdowns, operations issues,
passenger misconduct, and passenger or crew illness, to name just a few. The airline’s reaction
to the irregularity and its efforts to return to normal operations make a significant difference in the
level of inconvenience to its customers.
Choose one specific cause of airline irregular operations, and write a short essay (200–300
words) describing the ways the issue can affect the operation. Delineate a strategy the airline
can use to prevent or recover from this specific upset, and describe the pros and cons of that
strategy.
Post the essay so that others can see what you came up with. You are welcome to comment on
your classmates’ posts, but additional comments are not required for this discussion.
Discussion: Economic Analysis
Critical analysis of basic economic markers can be very revealing of an airline’s financial health.
For this assignment, research an airline’s most-current financial data, analyze the data, and report your findings.
Most airlines are public companies (as compared to private companies) and, usually, public companies are required by securities regulators to make financial information available to the public. This gives students and other researchers open access to audited information via annual and other reports. This information is generally available from the airline’s website; look for “About Us” or “Investor Relations” links in your research. For U.S. companies, look for the most
recent SEC Reports. An annual SEC report (called a 10K report) is an audited report containing
all of the company’s financial data.
For this discussion, select a public airline, find its most current annual financial information, and
look for some of the key terms discussed in Activity 5.1. Then, in an essay of 200–300 words,
analyze the figures you found, noting trends and relationships. For example, you might find a
company with high costs (CASM) and low fares (yield), resulting in a very high BLF (near 1.0). A
high BLF will put pressure on marketing to keep seats filled. Another company might have
PRASM less than CASM; meaning ancillary revenue (like baggage fees) will be very important to
maintaining a profit.
For this discussion, you are required to provide at least two responses to classmates’ main
posts. Responses should be thoughtful and include thought-provoking feedback. In other words,
“I agree” or “Great post” are not considered valid responses. Whether you agree or disagree,
explain why and support your response with valid references.
Air carriers, whether passenger or cargo, are in business to make a profit. However, as many
airlines have proven over the years, in a business of traditionally very low margins, this is not
always an easy task; in fact, in just the last decade, over a dozen carriers have declared
bankruptcy. In this module, we are going to analyze air carrier economics and examine their
rather unique product – an available seat-mile (ASM). As you’ll see, the ASM has some unusual characteristics: it’s very perishable, it can’t be stockpiled, and it has extensive fixed production
costs in contrast to very low marginal costs. As a result, airlines must use some rather unique
strategies to stay in business. In this module, you will not only analyze some of those strategies
but also understand and speak in airline economic terms.
Module Objectives
Upon successful completion of this module, you will be able to:
Analyze the competitive strategies of major airlines. (LO 5)
Employ standard air industry economic terms. (LO 5)
Analyze unfamiliar material in the area of air transportation. (LO 8)
Extract pertinent fundamentals and actionable information. (LO 8)
Use qualitative and/or quantitative analysis to analyze patterns in large amounts of data. (LO 8)