Project management

Case Study - Background Amfly Airline PLC (A.A. Plc), a major airline operator in Western Europe, has just purchased 60% of the shares in Eastern Pride Airways Ltd (EPA Ltd) from the thirty year old widow of the founder who died one month ago. The widow’s two stepsons own the remaining 40% of the shares. The elder son, the Managing Director, holds 25% and the younger son, the technical director, holds 15%. EPA Ltd is a low budget airline that operates on Europe – Middle East lucrative routes. The Europe–Middle East lucrative route is a major route for A.A. Plc but overhead costs is making the route a burden. Their purchases of EPA Ltd might mean that they can operate on the Middle East route at a cheaper cost and continue providing a very rapid reliable service to their customers Because of the local difficulties (especially the 2015 ‘Ash cloud’ saga in Europe) and increased landing cost in Western Europe airports, A.A. Plc proposes to close its entire Western Europe operations and relocate its headquarter to Dubai, United Arab Emirate. The transfer will require a new hub centre in Dubai. The remaining A.A. Plc old office building in Western Europe would be sold off, possibly for housing development. All current pilots and fifty-percent of the cabin crews would be offered jobs at the new Dubai Headquarter but most of the general administrative staff and the remaining fifty-percent of the cabin crews would be surplus to requirements and would be made redundant. The whole move must be made soon without affecting customers’ summer travels. The project is only at the concept stage and no work has yet been done or decisions taken. Less than a third of the admin staff are in a union but the cabin crews are fairly militant; so far there has been lack of support from members for industrial action. You are an independent external Project Management consultant and have been retained by the A.A. Plc directors to: • Carry out and develop (making full use of the topics covered by this module) a preliminary qualitative project appraisal. You are also expected to propose how this project can be managed successfully to contain the inherent risks.  

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