Marketing Research Project On The Overall Impact Of COVID-19 on the Royal Melbourne Airline Travel

Consultancy Report

The airline industry has been hit by the COVID-19 crisis recently. With unfettered consequences, many airlines around the world have grounded almost all of the planes of their fleet. The pandemic hit the airline industry more severely than it did in 9/11 and 2008 financial crisis (see figure 1 below). However, the operational managers, networking teams and commercial executives are still trying to figure out the way to repatriate the passengers and decide on new flight routes, destinations and safety checks (McKinsey, 2020). The question of the hour is related to demand recovery i.e. how long will it take for air travel demand to recover.

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In a response to the above identified situation, this marketing research project is developed to understand the overall impact of COVID-19 on the Royal Melbourne Airline Travel. This marketing project will help the company in identifying necessary initiatives, actions and/or services that are required for commencing the international and domestic flight services. Through this consultancy report, recommendations, reflections and analysis would be conducted on the pre-designed questionnaire developed for the current market research. The aim of this consultancy report is to identify any loopholes, grey areas and opportunities to improve the questionnaire so that data could be collected properly and initiatives for improving international & domestic flights could be taken.

Part 1- Evaluating the Draft Questionnaire

A: Questionnaire: A Good Source of Data Collection

The research objective is to understand the impact of COVID-19 on Airlines Industry in Australia and to identify the required services and initiatives for commencement of international and domestic airlines. In order to understand the impact of COVID-19 and analyze the needs of the travelers and their expectation from the Airlines, questionnaires and surveys are considered to be a good tool of data collection. A questionnaire is defined as the written document with pre-defined set of questions (Babie, 2007). An effective questionnaire doesn’t need to be lengthy and must be focused on the respondents’ perception and their experiences. In the given case, I would recommend adding more relevant questions specific to COVID-19 and the pandemic so that in-depth and related information related to passengers concerns could be gathered. For example, questions regarding in-flight crew services, amenities, time-on-time temperature checks and corona testing kits should be added.

B: Appropriateness of Length, Structure & Layout

The current questionnaire is based on open-ended and close-ended questions. However, more close-ended questions are visible as compared to open ended. The questionnaire is appropriate for providing the relevant information with minimum errors (Babie, 2007). However, the current questionnaire seems to be a little dragged off. It should be divided in two blocks where in first section should refer to quick background analysis containing name, age, occupation, travelling purposes, frequent or non-frequent traveler, domestic or international traveler, gender and country of residence. The second section should be targeted on the COVID-19 related questions classified into amenities, safety checks, food, and quality of services, pre-post travelling services, COVID-19 concerns and health monitors. Moreover, some of the questions are appearing to be repetitive in nature for instance question 13 and 14 provides almost similar information regarding concerns of passengers post COVID-19 travelling. Question 16 and 17 can also be compressed into one question. Other than this, the filling details are not provided for the respondents like (tick single response or choose multiple responses).

C: Use of Screening & Skip Questions

Screening questions (screeners) can aid in collecting data from the targeted respondents only (Lamb, et al., 2008). In order to best utilize the screening questions, the effective way is to place screeners at the start of the survey. Currently, RMA has planned to conduct this survey with consumers who have booked at least one flight with RMA in last 24 months (2 years) domestically and/or internationally. A screening question could be placed as question 1 whereby clearly asking respondents to whether tick Yes or No. A question like,

Q1: Have you travelled or booked at-least one domestic/international flight with RMA in past 24 months? Tick One

• Yes
• No (in case of this selection we welcome you to consider flying with RMA in future, please skip the rest of the survey).

This screening question could save the time of respondents and maintain the quality of the questionnaire itself (Lamb, et al., 2008). Also, there would be no need to collect the information from these respondents. The current questionnaire has used the screener as Question 1 (when did you last fly with RMA) but contains unnecessary dates that took up all the space. Only a yes and no could have been time saving. Also, the screener doesn’t indicate the respondents to skip the survey in case they travelled prior to June 2019.

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D: Phrasing of Questions

The phrasing of questions must be focused, clear and related to topic of the research (Burns & Bush, 2007). The close-ended questions should contain all the reasonable responses but there shouldn’t be overlapping in the categories. Moreover, one question should address one problem only and the questions shouldn’t be double barreled. In the given questionnaire, the questions are clear and focused enough to be understood by the targeted respondents. Also, the questions relate the issue COVID-19 with level of agreements of the respondents given different scenarios  (Burns & Bush, 2007).

E: Use of Scales Levels/Types

The survey response formats used in the questionnaire can vary according to the objective of research. The responses can be as simple as Yes or No or might be as complex as choosing from seven best options. There are dichotomous (2-point scales) and rating scales (three point, five point or seven-point).The given questionnaire has used 7 point Likert Scale for few questions. However, it also averaged out slight agree and slightly disagree together for eliminating the neutral point from 7-point scale and made it 6-point for question 12.

Part 2- Proposed Data Collection

A: Online Survey Data Collection

The data collection surveys are utilized for collecting the information from the targeted group of people regarding their behavior, knowledge, opinion or views (Zikmund, 2003). The common type of surveys includes questionnaires, face-to-face interviews, focus groups and the e-mail/website surveys. The online surveys are considered to be much more cost-effective and can reach to maximum number of people as compared to the other mediums (Andrews, et al., 2003).

The service industry firms prefer conducting online surveys for collecting the data along satisfaction metrics after the services have been performed (Andrews, et al., 2003). The online surveys are also widely utilized by Skytrax for evaluating the services, operations, amenities, satisfaction and processes of several leading airways like British Airways, Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Qantas, Thai Airways and Qatar Airways (Skytrax, 2020). Hence, online survey method can be utilized by RMA for conducting the marketing research project with its customers who travelled or booked a flight with RMA in past 2 years.

B: Advantages & Disadvantages

There are several pros and cons of the online survey data collection method that are discussed below:

Pros

Online survey methods have low cost and high response rate because it is convenient for the respondents to fill out the questionnaire in short time (Andrews, et al., 2003). Moreover, it can redirect the respondents to survey end if they are not screened from the screening question. There are several websites that aid the companies in creating and delivering the survey in fast and reliable manner  (Andrews, et al., 2003).

With online surveys, the respondents’ answers are automatically stored in the database and many tools can aid the companies in making data analytics and dashboards out of them with ease and short time  (Andrews, et al., 2003). Rapid deployment of answers and the return times are possible with the online surveys as these do not rely on the traditional methods. The online surveys can also be programmed through patterns and logics so that the questions and answers flow without any hassle  (Andrews, et al., 2003).

Cons

As the survey method does not require the presence of an interviewer, hence it is highly likely to get skewed answers as people tend to randomly select options for completing survey as soon as possible  (Andrews, et al., 2003). Hence, there is less accountability. Moreover, few of the targeted people have no or little access to internet due to being non-tech savvy, hence drawing samples is harder based on website and email surveys. Online surveys can easily be ignored, bypassed or deleted by the respondents as some people hate being poked so they easily delete or ignore the surveys  (Andrews, et al., 2003). This is why, a well-trained interview can remove all the biases and skewed answers from the non-interested respondents.

C: Implementation of Online Survey

The recommended questionnaire survey should be deployed through internet for the targeted audience. It is recommended to add some automation in the survey by allowing skipping patterns. This will eliminate the errors from respondents’ point of view and simplify the overall process of survey  (Andrews, et al., 2003). Automatic validation of inputs should also be incorporated in the online survey so that double answer ticks could be flagged for respondents. A web survey program can be used in conjunction with online survey by RMA to for collecting more than the respondent’s answers including time taken and number of visits made to online survey  (Andrews, et al., 2003). Also, the survey progress must also be shown at the screen for allowing customers to know the remaining time.

Before conducting the survey, RMA must test its compatibility with different browser (Netscape, IExplorer, Google Chrome, AOL) and different connection speed. Also, the test of skipping patterns and double-checking for errors must be completed beforehand  (Andrews, et al., 2003). The online survey should also at the end allow respondents to report the problems with survey (if any arose during the filling up process). A help desk or help doodle should also be made available for guiding the respondents to get through the whole survey process and keep respondents engaged.

Part 3- Sampling Plan

A: Sampling Plan

The sampling plan can help in identification of the population target for the research (Ritchie & Goeldner, 1994). The current targeted sample is the customers who have booked the flight with RMA (internationally/domestically) within past 2 years. The sampling plan is divided into three steps;

Step 1: Choosing the Population – Sampling Unit:

In this case, the targeted sample is the customers who have booked the flight with RMA (internationally/domestically) within past 2 years.

Step 2: Sample Size:

500 respondents are chosen to represent the population for this research survey.

Step 3: Sampling Procedure:

Probability sampling method will be used for selecting the samples from population. This will ensure that different units of the customers who fly through airways have equal probability of being chosen. Under probability sampling, systematic random sampling method will be used. For this, the booking details of all the customers in past 2 years will be recorded in Excel in a random order. Then the sampling fraction would be chosen using formula (Sample/no. of total customers) and calculating the interval size as (Total customers/sample) and then using this interval to choose the customers until 500 are chosen. For safer side, 550 customers will be shortlisted and responses of first 500 customers will be used for the data analysis.

The simplicity of the systematic sampling will allow the RMA to assign different roles to its employees and set objectives of identifying the impact of COVID-19 on domestic and international travelers.

B: Advantages & Disadvantages

Using systematic random sampling has both pros and cons as follows:

Pros:

It is cost effective and doesn’t need classification of data as such required in stratified random sampling. It avoids the judgment and includes the samples due to being probability based. It also doesn’t require extra time or funds and is riskless and reliable (Taherdoost, 2016). The researchers usually have higher degree of control in choosing, controlling and identifying the first sample. It eliminates the clustered selection and low probability of contamination.

Cons:

The disadvantage of systematic sampling is that the actual size of the population might not be known before starting the sampling method. Moreover, population doesn’t remain uniform hence the system can become defunct due to non-uniformity  (Taherdoost, 2016). Another disadvantage is over-under representation of particular sample patterns and high risk of data being manipulated  (Taherdoost, 2016).

Part 4- Analysis & Reporting

A: Reporting & Analysis

Step 1: Identify Top Research Questions using Tools like Survey Monkey

The top survey questions appearing from the online survey could include; how did the passengers value RMA’s safety checks for travelling? How well passengers believe that RMA could be chosen for international and domestic travelling? Do customers feel that they’ll be safely and hygienically travelling with RMA given their initiatives post COVID-19? Which services did customers rate best for feeling satisfied when travelling with RMA in future?  (Survey Monkey, 2020).

Step 2: Cross-tabulation and Filtration of the Results

By delving into response rates by means of cross tabulation, RMA will be able to understand what it can do to improve the passenger services for travelling so that more of them can return to RMA post COVID-19 (Survey Monkey, 2020). By using filters for data modeling i.e. narrowing the focus on one subgroup while filtering others, RMA can understand particularities and demand of different subgroups. For example, responses for how well they rate RMA’s safety checks post COVID-19 can vary across females, males, business travelers, vacation travelers, frequent travelers and occasionally travelling people. Every time a filter is applied, the sample size would decrease  (Survey Monkey, 2020).

Step 3: Crunching down the Numbers

At this step, statistically significant data must be used for informing the future decisions regarding taking measures post COVID-19 by RMA. In order to crunch the numbers, several methods like confidence intervals and inferences can be made  (Survey Monkey, 2020). Moreover, graphical representations of outliers, scatter diagrams, box-plots and pie-charts can also be used to present the data in a visual friendly manner.

Step 4: Drawing the Conclusions

With the help of statistical measures like inferential statistics and descriptive statistics, the conclusions must be drawn in order to answer the research questions (1, 2 ,3 of Phase 1) for RMA. Causation vs. correlation can also be utilized for conducting the data analysis and making conclusions  (Survey Monkey, 2020).

B: Inferential Statistics

Confidence Intervals

The primary goal of inferential statistics is to estimate the population parameters. The confidence intervals thus incorporate the uncertainty and sample error for creating the range of values within which the actual population value might fall in (Coughlan, 2009).

Regression Analysis

Regression analysis is the best way to find the relationship between independent and dependent variables (Lavrakas, 2008). In analyzing the survey of RMA, it might be interesting to understand what factors most impact the passengers’ satisfaction while travelling with RMA in post COVID-19 conditions.

Hypothesis Test:

Hypothesis tests are best ways to find the answer to research questions by finding the mean scores and proportions of the responses across several factors  (Lavrakas, 2008). The questions like are customers satisfied with RMA’s take on safety post COVID-19? can be answered through this inferential statistic. Moreover, tests like Two-sample t test and Cronbach Alpha can describe the reliability of scales used and statistical significance of the responses obtained.    

Part 5- Sampling Plan

A: Research Design & Data Collection

The research design is a framework that describes the tools, methods and techniques used by the researcher in collecting the data (Lamb, et al., 2008). The research design and methods are different to each other as good design means that the obtained data tend to answer the research question effectively. In order to understand the traveler journey changing post COVID-19 and how RMA’s initiative remained effective in making consumers feel confident in travelling with RMA before, after and during the flight(s), RMA is recommended to utilize interviews. Since in phase 2, it is decided to conduct an exploratory qualitative research, hence this data collection method is suitable. An interview with the subject matter experts and the targeted consumers can give the meaningful insight into the operations of flights. Furthermore, the results of the qualitative exploratory research can give RMA indications as to why, how and when something occurs and how often or how many people are satisfied with the services post COVID-19  (Lamb, et al., 2008). The interviews conducted as a part of qualitative research in phase 2 can give rich detail, meaningful and contextual experiences of the passengers.

Qualitative studies generate the understanding from patterns, apply the ideas, focus on understanding social constructs, and attend accretion description of process, face conceptual complexity and favors fieldwork. Throughout phase two, the interviews can be conducted during the explanatory stage of the research project with aim of uncovering the factors that play a pivotal role in appraising the confidence of passengers related to travelling with RMA. This research design will allow RMA to probe deeper into consumers’ perceptions, needs, satisfaction and preferences when it comes to travelling and choosing the airlines.

B: Implementation of Data Collection

Data would be collected through conducting structured interviews with the passengers before, after and during the flights (Bernard, 2000). The structured and semi-structured interviews must contain open-ended questions. The questions to be asked will be structured and decided by the researcher pre-hand and both face-to-face and telephonic short interviews will be conducted to identify the customer satisfaction before, after and during the flight(s) with RMA.

C: Sampling Plan

Step 1: Choosing the Population – Sampling Unit:

In this case, the targeted sample is the customers who will be booking the flight with RMA (internationally/domestically) within the next 24 months.

Step 2: Sample Size:

600 respondents will be chosen to represent the population for this research survey.

Step 3: Sampling Procedure:

Probability sampling method will be used for selecting the samples from population  (Bernard, 2000). This will ensure that different units of the customers who fly through airways have equal probability of being chosen. Under probability sampling, random basic sampling method will be utilized. For doing so, the computerized records will be used for generating a list of passengers and then using sampling faction  (Bernard, 2000). After that, coding each passenger with a random number 0 and 1, the researcher can randomly select 600 passengers after rearranging all the customers according to the coding number. The researcher would be able to choose first 600 customers for taking their short interviews when the list will be produced in random order from lowest to highest.

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