The impact of airline service failures on travelers' carrier choice: a case study of central Iowa.

Abstract

Understanding air travelers' carrier choices is an important issue for airline managers. Using the survey data recently collected in central Iowa, this article examines how travelers' airline choices are affected by their past service failure experiences (e.g., seat denials or considerable flight delays) with the candidate airlines. The effects of service failure experiences on traveler choice probabilities are estimated separately for business and leisure travelers, and by type of service failures (seat denials, flight delays, and baggage mishandling). The results indicate that, for both business and leisure trips, travelers' airline choices may not be affected by any service failure experience. This condition implies that, in each trip occasion, travelers may choose the airlines that maximize their utilities without regard to past service failures. Although this behavioral pattern may seem somewhat counter-intuitive, it is consistent with the random utility theory.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/117772693.html

Surprise Finding: Satisfaction Overrated In Airline Loyalty

What makes air travellers loyal to one particular airline? Do comfortable seats, good food or friendly flight attendants change consumer preferences when it comes to picking an airline to fly with?














Surprisingly, it now seems that these factors have very little to do with airline loyalty. According to researchers at the University of Wollongong (UOW) in New South Wales, carriers wanting to attract loyal customers should actually shift their focus away from increasing customer satisfaction.
Professor Sara Dolnicar from UOW’s Institute for Innovation in Business and Social Research in the Faculty of Commerce said satisfaction with an airline’s performance was heavily overrated as the reason customers stay loyal to a particular airline.

http://www.eglobaltravelnews.com.au/airline/surprise-finding-satisfaction-overrated-in-airline-loyalty.html

26 Tips for Enhancing Your Facebook Page

Are you looking for fresh ideas to enhance your Facebook efforts? Do you ever have days when you’re not sure what to post on your Facebook page?
This can be a real problem if you’ve made Facebook updates an integral part of your communications strategy.
These are the times when having a ready-and-waiting list of Facebook ideas will come in handy. In this post I’ll show you 26 practical ways to use good content for your Facebook pages, everything from A to Z.
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/26-tips-for-enhancing-your-facebook-page/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Evaluating terminal management performances using SLAM: The 3 case of Athens International Airport

Abstract
Athens in Greece is the city selected to host the 2004 Olympic Games. Many simulations and analyses have been performed in order to properly approach the logistics problems arising from such an event. In this paper we address one of these problems. More precisely,we present a model for analyzing the terminal of Athens International Airport (AIA) under three different scenarios: (i) a historic scenario, based on a typical “busy day”, (ii) a foreseeable scenario with AIA becoming a hub and increasing its traffic volume, and (iii) a traffic intense scenario, as expected during the 2004 Olympic Games. The airport simulation is performed through the OPAL platform. While the airside analysis does not evidence any major cause of congestion, the landside, evaluated through an enhanced version of the simple 15 landside aggregate model (SLAM), shows possible situations of congestion with a consequent degradation in the level of service provided. The use of SLAM allows signaling out the bottlenecks and the corresponding possible causes. A simple modification in the airport policies is sufficient to significantly improve the overall performance.
2005 Published by Elsevier Lt

http://www.dei.unipd.it/~brunetta/at_papers/cor.pdf

Airport Landside Analysis and Modeling

by Dr. Antonio A. Trani
Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Virginia Tech

Content
Brief description of terminal concepts
+ horizontal distribution
+ vertical distribution
+ landside components
• Future directions and impacts
• Some analytic techniques to model and simulate
terminals

Purpose of the Discussion
• To review and understand the basic airport terminal
concepts
• To discuss modeling techniques applicable to primary
and secondary flows inside the airport terminal
• Discussion of challenges in airport terminal modeling
• Passenger behavior modeling
• Shopping activities inside airport terminals
• Security implications


http://128.173.204.63/courses/cee4674/cee4674_pub/airport_landside.pdf

Prioritizing Airline Service Recovery Solutions by Service Problem Development Technique

Master's Thesis: Prioritizing Airline Service Recovery Solutions by Service Problem Development Technique with a case study in Iran Air
Mehdi Toghian Chaharsoughi; [2008]

Abstract: Nowadays, the competitive world of businesses forces organizations to seriously increase their customer satisfaction and loyalty and the leading companies have conducted and experienced almost all of the related strategies. Meanwhile, customer complaints management and service recovery solutions provide new competitive advantages to the organizations and those who use more effective solution to manage service failures is more expected to win the competition.In this thesis, a new methodology has been proposed to prioritize service recovery solutions, based on service failures. For this purpose, literature has been reviewed and classified, considering its contribution to different parts of the methodology. Two comprehensive sets of service failures and service recovery solutions have been developed, which in turn has supported the House of Quality (HoQ) analysis. The proposed methodology has been examined in IranAir as the major airline in Iran. Data had been gathered from designed questionnaires a statistically was analyzed. After computing the matrix in HoQ, The total values of the service recovery solutions have been found and prioritized. Then they have been compared with the priorities from managers' point of view and the differences have been finally highlighted.The outcomes imply that the new methodology has the capability to be specialized for particular airlines, such as IranAir. The difference between the results of the proposed methodology and the managers point of view outlines the fact that the new methodology is much more effective than the traditional approaches, in which the service recovery solutions are prioritized based on managers' point of view. However, some recommendations and suggestions has been presented, by which the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed methodology is expected to increase. 


epubl.luth.se/1653-0187/2008/074/LTU-PB-EX-08074-SE.pdf

7 Toxic Attitudes That Can Harm Your Career

There are certain attitudes that you will not find among successful employees. These attitudes resemble illnesses and if left unchecked, can destroy careers. Here are some of the most common:
1. "If they promote me, I'll show them how capable I am." This person has the process exactly reversed. Capability needs to be demonstrated in order to secure the promotion. This means doing far more than the basics of the job. It requires extraordinary performance and loads of initiative.
[See 15 Ways Good Bosses Keep Their Best Employees.]
2. "I won't turn down any requests because I want to have a reputation as a can-do person." This is more controversial. I know of some consultants who recommend this approach. Unfortunately, there are some projects that will consume too much time and will seriously inhibit the successful performance of other, more important projects. A person who overpromises and then underperforms is unlikely to succeed. The successful person knows his or her limitations and carefully explains the choice of priorities. You succeed both by the projects you take on and the ones you avoid.
3. "I'm going to stick with this until I make it a success." Persistence is admirable, but it can become foolish. The persistent person needs to learn when to drop projects that have become a drain of resources and time.
[See How to Ruin Your Work Reputation Slowly.]
4. "I'm a turn-around artist." That may be the case and there's no doubt that such skills can be sorely needed. Turn-around artists should recognize, however, that they have short shelf lives. Eventually, management will want to put this wizard into another hot spot. If the turn-around artist wants to stay put, new skills will have to be acquired and new expectations negotiated.
5. "I don't need people skills. I'm in a technical position." If the lack of people skills is not noticeable, the techie may be safe. If it becomes an issue, a very harsh lesson may be coming.
6. "I'm a perfectionist." That's all well and good, but the perfectionist had better be able to meet deadlines. As Ronald Reagan quipped about his B-movie career, "They didn't want it good. They wanted it Thursday."
[Find more job advice at U.S. News Careers.]
7. "I don't have time to schmooze." Finding some would be wise. Isolation from others keeps out important information and reduces influence. It can be amazing how much can be accomplished today because time was taken for a cup of coffee with another manager six months ago.
Michael Wade writes Execupundit.com, an eclectic combination of management advice, observations, and links. A partner with the Phoenix firm of Sanders Wade Rodarte Consulting Inc., he has advised private and public-sector organizations for more than 30 years.

http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/7-Toxic-Attitudes-That-Can-usnews-4272916755.html?x=0

Case Study: Singapore Changi Airport, Terminal 1 Upgrading, Singapore

22 July 2010

Brintons has enjoyed a long and successful relationship with Changi Airport Group for more than 20 years and when the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) announced in 2008 that it would upgrade Changi T1 at an estimated cost of $500 million, Brintons’ reputation for handling and delivering complex, large-scale projects on time and within budget meant it was commissioned to supply the 54,000 sq metres of carpet that were required for the renovation project....


http://www.designbuild-network.com/contractors/interior/brintons/press10.html

http://www.moodiereport.com/document.php?c_id=1178&doc_id=18418

iMuse

well, if you are wondering what airlines uses iMuse.....

PS: the home screen isn't exactly up-to-date

Why are cheap flights so cheap? The truth behind low cost airlines

http://simpliflying.com/2009/why-are-cheap-flights-so-cheap-the-truth-behind-low-cost-airlines/comment-page-1/#comment-4368

Work Ready ~ by ben

I prepared these guidelines as a reference for you guys. You do not have to follow if you disagree with

it.

I believe there's a bit of confusion between the rational of attaining a 100% campus participation and the prospect of securing a 'good' internship. Firstly, how do u define a good internship? 1 that is slack? 1 that pays well? 1 that is tough so that it challenges you? Its subjective.

Also, I don't believe that you have to blindly show your presence in everything just for the sake of doing so. i, for one, never attended every event. Ironically, showing disinterest when participating just reiterate to everyone that you have a poor attitude and are incapable of greater responsibilities.  What really counts, is the attitude you take and how you could add value to the activity and organization. The same mindset applies when you are doing your internship or just about any endeavor that you may embark on.

I feel that these tips will help you and give you an edge, but it does not guarantee that you will get what you want. if you find this useful, by all means, use it! Just don't use it wholesale, tailor it to showcase your unique traits and play down your weaknesses :)

http://www.mediafire.com/?qjczv3syfjvjp9i
Password is: ams

The Worst Mistake You Can Make On Your Resume

Fact: Job hunters obsess about resumes. Who wouldn't? There's so much to get right--functional versus chronological, objective statements (pro and con), key words, templates, references, font size, white space, action verbs, employment gaps, placement and style of bullets, typos, and whether to include hobbies (probably a "no" on that last one).
So much, in fact, that we often forget the most important ingredient of a really great, interview-obtaining, new-job-snagging resume: It needs to be written specifically for the job you're after.
Does that mean you have to do a new resume for every single position you apply for? Yes, that's exactly what it means.


http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/The-Worst-Mistake-You-Can-usnews-4243712187.html?x=0

HOW TO: Use Twitter Hashtags for Business

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.
If you’ve used Twitter () for more than a couple of hours, you’ve probably already seen a tweet or two containing a word with the hash symbol (“#”) attached to it. That’s what Twitter users call a “hashtag,” and at any given time at least one of them can usually be found among the trending topics on Twitter. But what exactly is a hashtag? 



Hashtags are essentially a simple way to catalog and connect tweets about a specific topic. They make it easier for users to find additional tweets on a particular subject, while filtering out the incidental tweets that may just coincidentally contain the same keyword. Hashtags are also often used by conference and event organizers as a method of keeping all tweets about the event in a single stream, and they’ve even been used to coordinate updates during emergencies. In fact, hashtags were first popularized during the 2007 San Diego wildfire, when the tag #sandiegofires was used to identify tweets about the natural disaster.
You can create a hashtag simply by appending the hash symbol to a word, like this: #hashtag.


http://mashable.com/2009/09/04/twitter-hashtags-business/

How Investigative Journalism Is Prospering in the Age of Social Media

 In a society that is more connected than ever, investigative journalists that were once shrouded in mystery are now taking advantage of their online community relationships to help scour documents and uncover potential wrongs. The tools and information now available to journalists are making the jobs of investigative outlets more efficient.
The socialization of the web is revolutionizing the traditional story format. Investigative reporters are now capturing content shared in the social space to enrich their stories, enabling tomorrow’s reporters to create contextualized social story streams that reference not only interviewed sources, but embedded tweets, Facebook postings and more. Journalists are also leveraging the vast reach of social networks in unprecedented ways. In many respects, social media is enabling watchdog journalism to prosper. Here’s how.


http://mashable.com/2010/11/24/investigative-journalism-social-web/