Factors Affecting Operational Planning for Virgin Airlines

In this day and age, planning is key in any business startup, especially during tough economic times. As managers prepare a plan for any organization, many factors arise including the strengths, weakness, opportunities, threats and trends in any business planning. Let's explore to deeper analyze the most important factors that affect operational planning in Virgin-Atlantic Airlines: ease of use of resources for customers and human resources. We will review how convenience of resources for customers and human resource directly affect the operational level of planning of Virgin-Atlantic.

Before analyzing the factors affecting operation planning, we must know what operational planning is. Operational Planning is described by Bateman and Snell as "identifying the specific procedures and processes required at lower levels of the organization" (2004, pgs 9-10).

Convenience of resources for customers

Virgin-Atlantic Airlines has many resources to make flying more convenient for their customers. Online ticket buying, an upper class suite, and complimentary chauffeur are a few of the innovative ideas that the airline offers to make traveling easier and to help the operational level of planning.

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Online buying of tickets saves time and money for customers. Offering tickets 24 hours a day and also a search for the cheapest rates make ticket buying easily accessible for fliers and gives them the opportunity to save money. The upper class suite, which is only available on flights to and from New York (JFK & Newark), Boston, Washington, Orlando, London (Gatwick & Manchester), Caribbean, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Dubai, Johannesburg, Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney (Virgin Atlantic, 2006). "Upper Class Suite is the biggest fully flat bed in business class," where passengers are able to work, sleep and enjoy flying. Also, the upper class suite contains a full bar, massage therapy, and a salon (Virgin, 2006). Virgin Airlines...