Airline Industry Case Study

1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.0 Introduction

1.1 Overview

1.1.1 Airline industry

The airline industry is one of the fastest-changing industry sectors in the world today. That said, compared to other industries the airline industry has a relatively short history to look back at. While it is rather an impossible task to point to the exact date which could signal the starting line for the airline business, it could be said that the history of aviation in general started with the Wright brothers’ success in conducting powered air flights in 1903 (Sheehan & Oclott, 2003). A German general and aircraft manufacturer Count Zeppelin was the first business man to found an airline six years after the first manned flight by the Wright brothers. On the 16th

Among the early form of in-flight entertainment is the screening of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World in the Imperial Airways flight from London to Paris on 7th April 1925. Since then, it has seen rapid development as airlines are eager to use their respective in-flight entertainment systems as a strategic product to compete in the industry.

This development then opened the possibility of in-flight connectivity, which enables passengers to connect and communicate via satellite phone, intranet and the most recent development, in-flight internet. In-flight internet was first developed by Boeing with its Connexion by Boeing (CBB), an in-flight online connectivity service. It was a service that allowed traveller to access connection while on board a plane.

Following the trend, airlines have been pushing to offer in-flight connectivity in their flights, with the latest trend being the offering of Internet services on board. This focus on in-flight connectivity and on-board internet facility even led to some within the aviation industry to refer the entire in-flight entertainment category as IFEC (In-Flight Entertainment and

A pilot run will be done with beta testers comprising the students of Universiti Kuala Lumpur Malaysian Institute of Aviation Technology. After the pilot run, the survey will be done on various places: airport, immigration department. These places are chosen for:

i. High numbers of potential respondents. ii. High probability of the respondent having flown at least once in the past year.

5.2 Questionnaire

For this research, a set of questionnaire will be constructed, with emphasis on respondent’s view and knowledge of in-flight internet connection (wireless local area network), in-flight entertainment and how respondents view both in-flight connectivity and in-flight entertainment as a value added product in an aircraft.

The questionnaire will be divided into three major parts that touch on:

i. Demographics information of the respondent ii. Main questionnaire parts (with 10-15 questions) iii. Open end question (subjective opinions)

For main questionnaire section, Lickert scale will be used for the choice of answers, with range of 1 until 5.

5.3 Sampling