You are to consider the situation from the point of view of Alan Joyce, CEO, Qantas Airways.

Context

You are to consider the situation from the point of view of Alan Joyce, CEO, Qantas Airways.

Situation[1]

Qantas Airways is the major domestic and international Australian airline. Qantas has received a number of national and international awards for service and operational performance.

However, Qantas has experienced fierce competition in both the Australian domestic and international sectors following the relaxation of Australian government regulations regarding foreign airlines operating into, out of and within Australia. Responses to the increased competition have included the establishment by Qantas of Jetstar as a low cost competitor to Virgin Airlines and the recent entry of Tiger Airlines into domestic routes.

A number of significant events have recently occurred which have a major impact of the airlines performance and operations. These include a series of protracted rolling strikes by engineering staff over pay and conditions, a series of delayed and/or cancelled flights, mid-flight incidents requiring aircraft to return to the departure point, and the grounding of all aircraft for a number of days. These incidents have resulted one of the biggest financial losses ever incurred by an Australian registered company.

The CEO has instigated a number of measures to ‘turn-around’ the fortunes of Qantas.  These include breaking the long-standing alliance with British Airways and the formation of an alliance with Emirates Airlines, fleet modernization, 5000 redundancies over a three to five year horizon and building closer relationships with customers and suppliers.

The future of Qantas is by no means certain.

Report Requirements

1. Describe the current state Qantas Airways. Make reference to recent history and leadership.
2. Describe the existing leadership in the Australian airline industry from the lens OF PERSON, PURPOSE, POSITION and PROCESS within the airline industry;
3. Thoroughly review the challenges facing the airline industry in Australia over the next 5-10 years.
4. Discuss the impact of these challenges on Qantas over the next 5-10 years. Your concept(s) must be justified and supported;
5. Provide recommendations as to how these challenges could be responded to by Qantas leadership. Remember, this is a class in leadership, so that needs to be the focus of your report..
6. Demonstrate appropriate levels of teamwork to research, develop and deliver the assignment.
7. Deliver an academic standard report.

Report Requirements

Instructions

1. The group is to prepare and deliver a report which discusses the findings of your analysis. The report length is not to be less than 3000 and not more than 3500 words EXCLUSIVE of a title page, table of contents, reference list and appendices (if required).
2. The report may take a number of different formats for submission. However, the report is an academic piece of writing and requires that you form a case and put forward an argument.  You are required to demonstrate your understanding of the topic/issue, and ability to state an argument for a particular point of view or justify your analysis, the findings reached, recommendations made, and conclusions reached. You are required, as in any piece of academic writing, to provide theory references to support your report where required and appropriate.
3. Remember that the audience for this report would be senior management at one of Australia’s largest companies. Let’s avoid excessive jargon, trite phrases and generalizations and don’t talk about “the case”, talk about the situation Qantas is facing.
4. You are required to cite all your sources! Fortunately for you, there is a large volume of material for your reporting. Remember you are specifically looking at Qantas, BUT you must contextualise Qantas within the broader Australian Airline industry.

Assessment Criteria

 

The following assessment criteria will be used to mark the report.

Task No.	Task	Requirements
1	Describe the current state of Qantas.	·      Describe Qantas in terms of leadership size, complexity, organisations in the industry, context, environment and conditions.	10
2	Describe the existing leadership within the airline industry	·      Describe/explain existing leadership from a Person lens. ·      Describe/explain existing leadership from a Purpose lens. ·      Describe/explain existing leadership from a Position lens. ·      Describe/explain existing leadership from a Process lens.	25
3	Thoroughly review challenges facing the airline industry in Australia.	·      What are the key issues facing the chosen industry player likely to face over the next 5-10 years?	15
4	Discuss the impact of these challenges facing Qantas in the the next 5-10 years. Your concept(s) must be justified and supported.	·      What are the likely impacts of 2 and 3 above on facing Qantas.in the next 5-10 years? Develop a clear concept of the challenges and issues that Qantas could face over in next 5-10 years	15
5	Provide recommendations Qantas leadership as to how these challenges could be responded to.	·        Describe how Qantas .leadership may respond to the challenges. ·        Demonstrate evidence of: o    wide reading; and o    application of leadership thinking. ·        Your argument must be justified, future focused and supported.	20
6	Teamwork	·        Demonstrate that ALL team members have equally contributed to the research and development of the assignment	5
7	Quality of the written report	·        This is an academic report. As such the report is required to contain: a title page, table of contents, executive summary, introduction, body of the report (discussing each of the areas above), summary, conclusion, references, and appendices (if required).	10
TOTAL MARKS			100