Gatwick Airport's Poor Quality and Customer Reviews: A Simulated Meeting Assignment Task for Case St

The Simulated Meeting: Outline and Assessment Criteria

The air-travel website AirHelp, a passenger rights advocacy site released a ranking of major airports around the world for 2019 (Asquith, 2020).

“The list includes 132 airports evaluated on criteria like customer service, cleanliness, on-time performance, and the food and shopping options available to travellers” (Matousek, 2019).

Out of 10, 8 airports that received the lowest scores are in Europe (Matousek, 2019). One of them is Gatwick Airport. It is UK’s second-largest airport and was rated one of the worst airports in the world based on quality and punctuality. “Crowded lounges and waiting areas have been some of the most consistent complaints” about the airport (Asquith, 2020).

Additionally, Gatwick Airport has received many poor reviews within SKYTRAX with regards to their provision of service quality.

SKYTRAX is the World Airline and Airport Star Rating programme. It is a leading international rating system which classifies airlines and airports by the quality of frontline product and staff service standards (SKYTRAX, 2020). The following are examples of some of the poor customer reviews on Gatwick Airport from Skytrax-

• “Terrible facilities for children” (SKYTRAX, 2020).
• "I am actively going to avoid it. Poor security experience, queue after queue for everything. Poor food outlets with sky high prices. Treats passengers as cash

cows or cattle” (SKYTRAX, 2019).

Simulated Meeting Assignment Task for Case Study

The Directors of Gatwick Airport has asked the Director of Operations to organise a simulated meeting to address the current issues the airport has encountered. The focus of the meeting should be based on the following questions.

Q1. Outline 3 underlying reasons for poor quality that may have impacted Gatwick Airport being rated as one of the worst airports in the world.

Q2. Examine to what extent Gatwick Airport has the financial capabilities and competent employees to improve quality.

Q3. Make recommendations to Gatwick Airport to improve the quality of their service by ensuring that your group suggest a suitable total quality management concept.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

1. Knowledge and understanding of the reasons for poor quality at Gatwick Airport.
2. Knowledge and understanding of Gatwick Airport’s quality capabilities, competencies and philosophy.
3. Knowledge and understanding of recommended Total Quality Management.
4. Individual- Audibility/ Use of voice/Time Management /5
5. Individual- Demonstration of understanding of the subject matter /5
6. Individual- Research note/References /15

POINTS TO CONSIDER:

1 You should refer to AirHelp survey and Skytrax and apply gap model to identify the gaps in the service quality while outlining the reasons for poor quality.

2 You should consider examining financial capabilities and competence of their staff to improve the quality by referring to their annual report and reviews of the staff from Glassdoor.

3 You should consider total quality management concept like PDCA Cycle or Juran’s Trilogy.

FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS

Please note that this is a single 30-minutes simulated meeting. You are allocated 3 minutes for delivery of the meeting and 2 minutes for Q&A.

The lecturer allocates the area of a role of a senior management that you will be researching and studying. Each one of you will be given one question to tackle depending on role allocated to you by your lecturer.

While allocating roles, lecturers will give each one of you a number 1 to 6 indicating the role each one of you will be undertaking.

1 = Director of Operations

2= Director of Sales and Marketing

3= Director of Safety & Security

4= Finance Director

5=HR Director

6=Director of Communications/Public Relations

The students research should focus on the situation outlined according to their roles. The student needs to identify innovative ways of working that relate specifically to their given area, they must describe their sources e.g. this innovative idea is working in Heathrow Airport and so justify introducing the idea to the scenario given.

The simulated meeting groups will be written on the VLE. Students will need to create two A4 pages of research notes included with the references of the sources  used to do the research.

Students are awarded marks on the ideas that they contribute and the way they present and interact with the other meeting participants.

Delivering your part

Refer back to the relevant lecture but things to remember include-

• Produce your Research notes
• Discuss your research notes to your group members
• Practise speaking your part out loud
• Remember to speak slowly and clearly
• 3 minutes for delivery and 2 minutes for Q&A