1.

0 Introduction to the Research process

In general, there are few steps in creating a research process. it is not a linear process
which mean one can start writing bit by bit and adjust your research, thesis statement and
more. To create a finished product, there are few steps that need to be followed which is
shown as bellow:

1. Decide on the topic

2. Narrow the Topic

3. Do background research toward your topics

4. Create a research Questions.

5. create a working thesis statement by answering the research questions

6. Determine the suitable material needed for your argument.

7. creating a bibliography

8. paper writing.

TITLE: AN ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON AIR TRANSPORT

In terms of the significance or importance of air transportation to the Broad Topic In

economy, Aizenman (2004) and Schaur (2006) trust that air Context
transportation is more dependable and faster to manage international
demand volatility. This is because air transportation takes hours rather
than weeks. Air transport shipping provides real option of smooth demand
shocks for organizations or firms. An efficient air transportation action
system and shipping modes helps in quality improvement of the air
transport system and also elevate international and domestic trade,
business and economic process of a nation.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting travel restrictions and fall in Problem/
consumer demand led to a intense and unprecedented reduction in motivation
passenger flights across the globe. As borders closed, national
Governments of every country advised against all but essential travel and
passenger demand disappeared, worldwide airlines were forced to quickly
respond to the downturn and impose unprecedented cost saving
measures to protect their business.
Most of the previous study reported regarding with the Effect of aviation Narrowing topic
industry with the emerging cases of novel Covid-19 is insufficient. This is and problem
mean that, only certain aspect were discussed by the researches while the
other important aspect is left out and still not discuss until now. Thus, this
will not give the overall overview and clear understanding on the impact
and effect of corona virus bring to the airline services in specific.
Impact of COVID-19 on the Aviation Industry worldwide and the Specific Topic
suggestion made to mitigate this problem. The theory of the effect is that And theory
the support and help to airlines creates some serious concerns.
First, state aid could extend the life of airlines that even in a market
context free of Covid-19 pressures could have disappeared. Second, state
Support is likely to take different forms in different countries, in the
absence of a common European policy on the matter.
The objective of this study is to study the medium- and long-term impacts Aim and Scope
of Covid-19 as seen on the global aviation industry itself. This objective
can be accomplished by conferring the outcomes of a series of
comprehensive interviews with senior industry executives.
2.0 Identification and definition of the Problem

Almost all business operation for every industry was disrupted by the arising global risk of
Coronavirus- 2019 (Covid-19). Out of all industries, airline and travel industries were the one
which extremely affected as the impact of this pandemic, to date; there is no endorsed
medical treatment for the virus, causing a terrific panic worldwide. Thus, governments
around the world have banned cross-country transportation and thus shrunken the market
value of the airline business up until now. These issues motivated us to study the impact of
COVID-19 on the Aviation Industry as a whole.

Apart from that, there are really fewer previous research and studied that had been
conducted on this field. . This is mean that, only certain aspect were discussed by the
researches while the other important aspect is left out and still not discuss until
now. Thus, this will not give the overall overview and clear understanding on the impact
and effect of corona virus bring to the airline services in specific. This study does not touch
regarding the epidemiological/transport aspects of the recent pandemic but, on the other
hand we shift our focus on the medium- and long-term impacts of Covid-19 as seen within
the global aviation industry itself. There are no previous studies that have done this
research since the research was done within the period of extreme uncertainty, hence our
analysis does not deal with specific recovery scenarios and give the actual overview of what
the industry is dealing with.

Previous study conducted by (XiaoQian, 2020) entitle with “how did COVID-19
impact air transportation? A first peek through the lens of complex networks” only discuss
the effect without giving a throughout recommendation and suggestion on how should we
mitigate this issues. Thus this research is done to give future researcher a better guidance
on the mitigation that should be applied by the airlines industry
3.0 Research Questions and Research Objective

Based on the literature review of (i) Given the potential for air services to be disrupted by a
multitude of internal factors and external events, airlines must plan for a host of
eventualities to ensure, as far as possible, business continuity and the safe and timely
resumption of regular operations once the critical event has passed. (ii) At the early
emerging of corona virus, most airlines tried to operate a normal schedule until they were
prevented by drastic mobility restrictions.

From this summary of the literature, a research question can be posed:

How does air transportation (and other modes) contribute to the spread of COVID-19?

This research question clearly begs other questions:

1. What is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global aviation from a complex
system perspective?
2. How long can the air transport industry withstand the financial adversity?
3. How long will lockdowns and travel restrictions continue?
4. What future measures can a researcher suggest to fight this sort of pandemic condition
to restore back aviation industry performance?
5. Recovery will take time and surely investments will be put on hold in 2020. However,
there is technology that will help the airports to spring back, such as self-service
technology and contactless technology for passenger processing that will enable higher
throughput of passengers in existent capacity, better passenger experience, reduce
operational costs and reduce the spreading of pathogens. Are you advising the airports
not to shy away from such investments in 2020 to collect the benefits in the near to
long-term? How are airports seeing these investments – as a must have or are they
forced to put them on hold until the financial situation stabilises?
6. How long the pandemic last and what will be the severity levels and effect to the airline
industries?
Research objective

The specific objectives for this study are as follows:

1. To study the medium and long term impact of COVID-19 on the Global Aviation
Industry as a whole.

2. To identify the structural aspects of the airline industry that will shape its medium-
and long-term response to swift alterations in passenger and cargo traffic.

3. Mitigation to reduce the effect of the pandemic toward Airline industry

Research Justification.

Since the outbreak of Covid-19 is still considered as new and no vaccine or cure has been
found, the damage it done to many sectors especially air transportation system is too
severe. Even so, not many research were conducted to study in depth about the after effect
and impact it bring to the targeted industry. As an example, past related academic research
that contributed to the study of the effect of covid-19 have been cantered on the
relationship between aviation networks and global virus propagation (e.g., Wu et al., 2020;
Boldog et al., 2020; Adiga et al., 2020). These approaches copy the research done by
Bowen and Laroe (2006) on the link between air transport and the spread of the SARS virus
in 2003. Apart from that, Chinazzi (2020) conclude that travel limitations are more effective
if joint with social distancing policies to control local transmission. Despite of this, there is
still a gap on some certain aspect of the research that needs to be emphasized and that’s
why this research of an assessment of the impact of covid-19 on air transport should be
done. This research will benefit future researches as it give information to them and make
them able to do some continuation to the researched done.
References.

J.T. Wu, K. Leung, G.M. LeungNowcasting and forecasting the potential domestic

and international spread of the 2019-nCoV outbreak originating in Wuhan,
China: a modelling study Lancet (2020)Available from:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971220300539

Bogoch II, A. Watts, A. Thomas-Bachli, C. Huber, M.U.G. Kraemer, K. KhanPneumonia of
unknown etiology in Wuhan, China: potential for international spread via commercial
air travel J Travel Med (2020), 10.1056/NEJMoa2002032

Bogoch, I., et al., 2015. Assessment of the potential for international dissemination of Ebola
virus via commercial air travel during the 2014 west African outbreak. Lancet 385
(9962), 29–35.

Brockmann, D., Helbing, D., 2013. The hidden geometry of complex, network-driven
contagion phenomena. Science 342 (6164), 1337–1342.

Christidis, P., Christodoulou, A., 2020. The predictive capacity of air travel patterns during
the global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic: risk, uncertainty and randomness. Int. J.
Environ. Res. Publ. Health 17, 3356.

Diaconu, L., 2012. The evolution of the European low-cost airlines business models.

Gilbert, M., et al., 2020. Preparedness and vulnerability of African countries against
importations of COVID-19: a modelling study. Lancet 395 (10227), 871–877.

Janic, M., 2000. An assessment of risk and safety in civil aviation. J. Air Transport. Manag. 6
(1), 43–50.
 RESEARCH PROPOSAL

TITLE: AN ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON AIR TRANSPORT

INTRODUCTION

No single worldwide crisis had ever taken place as the centre of stage other than the
pandemic of Corona Virus or better known as Covid-19. This pandemic had changes the
entire human routines and activities. it has taken the entire human population by storm,
spreading as fast as the wildfire. Covid-19 of unknown causes was firstly detected and spot
in Wuhan, China and first reported on 31 December 2019 to the world health organization
(WHO). WHO on its immediate response and action has declared it as a global pandemic.
ever since then, the world has confronted major challenges on all scopes of human aspects:
political, social, economic, demographic among others (WHO, 2020a & 2020b).

Airline industry and aviation business in general hit their rock bottom as the industry
was badly affected by the Novel Covid-19 pandemic. Even during the first half of 2020, the
coronavirus disease (COVID-19) had in-depth giving bad implication to the society and world
economic. Despite of the direct impact on the health and mortality this pandemic also
caused major disruption in the economic activity. This will probably be followed by long
recovery period than the other pandemic that ever happen in this world. Airline industry was
mostly hit, as in April and May 2020, it was recorded that a total of 50% decreasing in the
overall number of flight worldwide. Apart from that, some of the European country reported
that their aviation business had been drop over 90% for the past two months (European
Commission, 2020)

The different response and recovery period taken is mostly due to the fact that the
Covid-19 crisis has quickly spread globally. Different international industry organisations
have tried to come up with forecasts of its impact. Airports Council International (ACI)
predicted that Covid-19 can wipe out two-fifths of passenger traffic and half of airport
revenues in 2020 (ACI, 2020).
 Figure 1: World passenger Traffic Evolution

In Europe, as elsewhere, airlines replied to the abrupt drop in demand and

simultaneous reduction in revenues by seeking to avoid direct operating costs and reducing
as many of their indirect operating costs as possible in order to preserve cash. As well as
grounding aircraft, many operators’ urged for national Governments for financial support,
had employee leave without payment or withdrawing operations from certain airports and
cutting routes. However, the ways in which airlines responded to the crisis diverse. Some
simply postponed normal operations while others wanted to actively deprive themselves of
expensive aircraft, staff and other assets and dramatically reconfigure their network offer.
The speed with which some carriers sought to introduce or accelerate restructuring or ‘right
sizing’ measures led to accusations of opportunism from certain quarters and a further
deterioration in what were often already strained industrial relations (Paton, 2020).

On the other hand, Southeast Asia leading low-cost airline mentioned that the
market conditions worsened sharply in February as the coronavirus outbreak began to
spread. AirAsia registered a net loss of 803.85 million ringgit for the three months to March
31, compared to a net profit of 96.09 million ringgit for the same period last year.
(Kumar.P.P, 2020). Apart of that, it is also recorded that Air-asia share price had drop down
13 sen or 10.16% to RM 1.15, which will represent a market capitalisation of RM3.84 Billion
which is the lowest close since August 2015.
 Air-Asia Group Price Chart in February 2020

Source: The Edge Financial Daily, on February 5, 2020.

There are few recent studies that had been conducted to investigating the various aspects
such as the Effect of Covid-19 toward the aviation network and the global virus propagation
(e.g., Wu et al., 2020; Boldog et al., 2020; Adiga et al., 2020). Plus, this research was
imitated by the studies that been done by Bowen and Laroe (2006) which studies the link
between air transport and the spread of SARS virus back in the year of 2003. Past
researches have determine that, that travel restrictions are more better if combined with
social distancing policies to control domestic transmission (Chinazzi,2020). Nikolaou and
Dimitriou (2020) identify the critical airports for controlling global infectious disease
outbreaks in Europe by integrating an epidemiological model with the structure of airline
networks. Others incorporated air travel data in efforts to estimate the outbreak size in a
given country, for example, Tuite et al. (2020) for Italy and Zhuang et al. (2020) for Iran.

The Effect of Covid-19 Pandemic toward the Aviation industry globally need to be
investigate in detailed as it will give a better prospective and understanding in regard of
business sector. The objective of this study is to study the medium- and long-term impacts
of Covid-19 as seen on the global aviation industry itself. This objective can be accomplished
by conferring the outcomes of a series of comprehensive interviews with senior industry
executives. Plus, these interviews were conducted during the month of the crisis, as the
governments all over the globe would start to implement extensive lockdown measures. It
was a period of extreme uncertainty; hence our analysis does not deal with specific recovery
scenarios. Instead, the focus is placed on finding structural aspects of the aviation industry
that will shape its medium- and long-term response to sudden changes in passenger and
cargo traffic. These structural components include supply, demand, regulation and business
ethics. Understanding these structural dimensions, via comments of survey respondents and
though links to recent research, can provide more assurance in determinations to predict the
future context. Since the opinions of senior stakeholders might change as the crisis
advances, a record of their opinions and assessment signifies a valuable reference for future
analysis.
2.0 Problem Statement

Almost all business operation for every industry was disrupted by the arising global risk of
Coronavirus- 2019 (Covid-19). Out of all industries, airline and travel industries were the one
which extremely affected as the impact of this pandemic, to date; there is no endorsed
medical treatment for the virus, causing a terrific panic worldwide. Thus, governments
around the world have banned cross-country transportation and thus shrunken the market
value of the airline business up until now. These issues motivated us to study the impact of
COVID-19 on the Aviation Industry as a whole.

Apart from that, there are really fewer previous research and studied that had been
conducted on this field. . This is mean that, only certain aspect were discussed by the
researches while the other important aspect is left out and still not discuss until
now. Thus, this will not give the overall overview and clear understanding on the impact
and effect of corona virus bring to the airline services in specific. This study does not touch
regarding the epidemiological/transport aspects of the recent pandemic but, on the other
hand we shift our focus on the medium- and long-term impacts of Covid-19 as seen within
the global aviation industry itself. There are no previous studies that have done this
research since the research was done within the period of extreme uncertainty, hence our
analysis does not deal with specific recovery scenarios and give the actual overview of what
the industry is dealing with.

Previous study conducted by (XiaoQian, 2020) entitle with “how did COVID-19
impact air transportation? A first peek through the lens of complex networks” only discuss
the effect without giving a throughout recommendation and suggestion on how should we
mitigate this issues. Thus this research is done to give future researcher a better guidance
on the mitigation that should be applied by the airlines industry
Research objective

The specific objectives for this study are as follows:

4. To study the medium and long term impact of COVID-19 on the Global Aviation
Industry as a whole.

5. To identify the structural aspects of the airline industry that will shape its medium-
and long-term response to swift alterations in passenger and cargo traffic.

6. Mitigation to reduce the effect of the pandemic toward Airline industry

2.0 Literature Review

According to the research conducted by Aizenman (2004) and Schaur (2006) on the
importance of air transportation to the economy, they reported that air transportation is
really crucial and faster to manage international demand. This is because, air transportation
is the fastest when comparing to land and water transportation, it cut time from week to
hours. Air transport shipping delivers real definition of smooth demand shocks for
organizations or firms. A well-organized air transportation action system and shipping modes
helps to boost quality improvement of the air transport system and also lift international and
domestic trade, business and economic process of a nation and thus enhancing Airline
business.

2.1 Commercial Air Transport

Commercial Air Transport is a derived demand by nature. Either passenger or goods was fly
around the globe due to their compelling need for them to be in different city and air travel
giving the service to move between geographically distant places safely, quickly and
efficiently at decided standards of service. Despite of that, the global air transport has their
own limitation and vulnerability especially to some range of disruptive events. Natural
disaster and bad weather such as strong winds, poor visibility and convective weather
(including thunderstorms) would regularly disturb schedules and lead to unscheduled or
precautionary landings while technical problems with aircraft and internal administrative
issues also resulted in frequent schedule perturbation (Budd, 2011). During the 20th
century, advanced technological in aircraft design and thrust added with innovations in
communication, navigation and surveillance (CNS) technologies allowed aircraft to fly
further, faster, longer and higher and overcome many of the potentially disrupting effects of
adverse weather. However, as individual aircraft’s vulnerability to weather related disruption
decreased, the global air transport system grew in scale and complexity and it became
increasingly vulnerable to other external events that were beyond its sphere of influence or
control. These upsetting events vary in scale, harshness and duration from localised effects
resulting from road traffic accidents on airport approach roads to system-wide disruption
caused by IT failures.

2.2 Novel Corona Virus

Figure 1: Novel Corona Virus (COVID-19)

Recently at the end of 2019, Wuhan which is a developing business hub of China was
shocked by the outbreak of a novel coronavirus that had killed more than eighteen hundred
and infected over seventy thousand individuals within the first fifty days of the epidemic.
This virus was reported to be a member of the β group of coronaviruses. The novel virus
was named as Wuhan coronavirus or 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCov) by the Chinese
researchers. The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) named the virus
as SARS-CoV-2 and the disease as COVID-19. In the history, SRAS-CoV (2003) infected
8098 persons with mortality rate of 9%, across 26 countries in the glovbe; on the other
hand, novel corona virus (2019) infected 120,000 individuals with mortality rate of 2.9%,
across 109 countries, till date of this writing. It shows that the transmission rate of SARS-
CoV-2 is higher than SRAS-CoV and the reason could be genetic recombination event at S
protein in the RBD region of SARS-CoV-2 may have enhanced its transmission ability.
2.2 Airlines Industry in the Context of Covid-19 Pandemic

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the potential for aircraft and airline passengers to
act as vectors of human infectious diseases was first recognised in the late 1920s when
long-distance flights began to be operated between Europe and destinations in Africa, the
Middle East, and India. In response to the identification of this new threat to national
biosecurity, a range of sanitary interventions, including Port Health screening of passengers,
aircraft disinsection (the eradication of live insects using chemical sprays) and mandatory
traveller inoculations against infectious diseases including yellow fever and typhus, were
introduced to try and safeguard both individual passengers and global public health (see
Budd et al, 2009). Between the turn of the millennium and the outbreak of the novel
Coronavirus in 2019, at least four major outbreaks of infectious disease (SARS, H1N1 and
H1N5 influenzas and Ebola) had impacted on the commercial aviation sector (see Mangili
and Gendreau, 2005 and Bowen and Laroe, 2006). Crucially, the key differences between
these outbreaks and the COVID-19 pandemic are that the earlier outbreaks were shorter in
duration, relatively localised (as opposed to global) in extent and less epidemiologically
severe in that they exhibited lower rates of in-community transmission and asymptomatic
infection. Moreover, although SARS, influenza and Ebola were disruptive in the short-term,
they did not lead to widespread, enduring or dynamic international travel restrictions, border
closures, national ‘lockdowns’, or changing requirements regarding passenger quarantine, or
have a lasting impact on passenger confidence or consumer willingness to fly. In contrast, it
has been postulated that passenger demand for air travel following COVID may not rebound
to pre-pandemic levels until 2023 at the earliest (IATA, 2020).

2.3 Previous Studies

Several studies have been conducted on consumer choice and preferences in airline travel.
Many studies have investigated the factors that influence decision making related to airline
choice. However, the importance of each factor differs among travelers and depends mainly
on their socio-demographic attributes and trip characteristics (Gilbert & Wong, 2003).
Several researchers found that socio-demographic characteristics such as income, age,
gender tend to exert a significant impact on the significance of service quality dimensions
(Clemes, Gan, Kao & Choong 2008).
For instance, a study by Soomro, Hameed, Shakoor, Butt and Khani (2012) in Pakistan
found boarding and clearance time and ease of e-ticketing to have significant impact on
customer preference and positively lead to purchasing intention of the services the airline
companies in the market. Sai, Ekiz & Kamarulzaman (2011) came up with different findings
for either FSCs or LCCs in Malaysia. The study found safety and service quality to exert a
significant positive effect on choice decision in Full Service Airlines, whereas price, strategic
alliance and loyalty programmes exerted significant positive effects on the choice decision
for Low Cost Carriers.

OAG Worldwide (2000) studied factors influencing passenger choices of airlines and
the survey established that 3,000 business air travellers around the world (including the US,
Europe, Singapore, and Australia) singled out convenient schedules, reputation for safety,
frequent flier programmes, on-board comfort, leg-room and efficient check-in procedures as
the highly featured factors when business passengers chose an airline. Such travelers were
not concerned about obtaining the cheapest fare.

Fourie & Lubbe (2006) in South Africa focused on business air travellers and factors
they consider in selecting either full-service or low-cost carriers. Results indicate that, for
both business travellers using LCCs and those using FSCs, the three most important service
factors were seat comfort, the schedule/frequency of trips and the price of the air ticket,
whilst in-flight entertainment was regarded as the least important.

A study conducted by Namukasa (2013) in Uganda examined the pre-flight (back

office operations), the in-flight and the post-flight service quality effect on passenger
satisfaction. The study also ascertained whether satisfaction affects passenger loyalty. The
findings show that there was a strong relationship between the proposed variables and
customer satisfaction. Also, Adeniji (1993) maintained that passengers who travel regularly
demand consistency of service. Consistency of services in the form of computerized
reservation system, corporate identification, computerized check in, through check in to final
destination, frequent flyer tracking, branded or business lounges and above all recognition.
The study of Ukpere, Stephens, Ikeogu, Ibe and Akpan (2012) on air travel in Nigeria found
that gender, age, marital status, income, comfort, on-board services.
 Existing research has shown that airline operators respond to external shocks, which
temporarily suppress passenger demand or result in the introduction of new protocols, by
concentrating on routes which can be operated safety and which exhibit the greatest
demand and highest yields. Marginal or unprofitable routes are quickly withdrawn. As a
result, carriers may be forced to temporarily suspend certain types of operation and/or
ground aircraft. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2008/09 financial crisis, for example,
airlines responded to reduced consumer demand and the resulting overcapacity by
temporarily grounding aircraft and suspending services. As well as immediately impacting on
operations, disruptive events and associated downward pressures on costs invariably impact
on labour as airline operators seek to reduce the size of their workforce and/or renegotiate
existing terms and conditions of employment (Harvey and Turnbull, 2015; 2020). In the
medium-to-longer-term, aircraft leases, fuel hedging contracts and airport charges may also
become potential targets for renegotiation (see Francis et al, 2004; Kelly 2020; Graham,
2020).
The extent and duration of the COVID-19 global public health emergency has tested
even the most robust and comprehensive contingency plans and caused an unprecedented
cash-flow and cost crisis for airlines worldwide. Some carriers (including Colombia’s Avianca)
entered administration as a direct consequence of the pandemic while others have sought to
furlough staff, cut costs, divest of disposable assets, and conserve as much liquidity as
possible. In June 2020, for example, it was reported that British Airways, which was
reportedly losing £20 million a day in cash (Patton, 2020) and facing a £211 million-a-month
wage bill (Osborne, 2020), was seeking to sell items from its multimillion-pound art
collection to realise additional capital (Hotten, 2020).
3.0 Research Methodology.

3.1 Research Flowchart

Gathering Information and material

Data collection

Official Airline Guide, CLIVE data services Interview

OAG

Data Analysis

Effect of Covid-19 toward Airline

industry

3.2 Methodology

The Empirical Data obtained is collected from three distinct sources of information. Firstly
Official Airline Guide, OAG provides this research with information such as the total number
of variables for each scheduled flight which comprising of origin and destination airport, time
of departure and arrival, number of seats offered to the customer, aircraft type, and day of
operation. Plus, the global data capacity from January to April 2020 was included in order to
calculate year-on-year changes with respect to the corresponding dates in 2019. Despite of
this, the limitation when analysis was conducted by using this capacity data were
acknowledge. On the Other hand, some airline was flying an empty aircraft before
grounding most of their fleets.

Air Frieght, Air-Asia and more airline data is collected from CLIVE data services for the first

three months of 2020. CLIVE combines data shared by international airlines and it is broadly
viewed as the provider with the earliest up-to-date figures for global airlines markets. The
dataset contains information on chargeable weight, plane capacity and dynamic load factors.

Last but not least. A total of 16 senior aviation executives were selected and interviewed
between January to March 2020. Even though it was selective, a varied unit from different
position were selected as shown in Table 1.

Table 1: List of Interviewees

Airline Industry Position

Airline Insurance Broker Country director
Aircraft Lessor Vice President
Country airline association President
European/Asia regional airline Ceo
Major European/Asia low-cost carrier C-level
Airline pilot union Head of Union
Major Officer network carrier Former VP for Cargo
Airport industry Position
Major World hub airport Head of strategy
Medium size airport with 10–20 million Director,CEO
passengers
Regional European airport with 200-500 K Deputy managing Directot
passengers
Airport investor Senior manager
Others Position
Large aviation service consultancy Head of sustainability
Business travel agency association Country Director
Large Asian aviation consultancy CEO
Boutique Consultancy Firm from Latin CEO
America Data Company
Data Company Managing Director
 In regard with the airline sector, we interviewed managers of a major network
carrier, a large low-cost carrier, a regional airline, an airline association, a pilot union, an
aviation insurance broker and an aircraft lessor. For the airport sector, we interviewed
managers of a large hub airport, a medium size airport and a regional airport, as well as of
an airport investing firm. Finally, we also interviewed senior leaders from other
organisations, namely consultancies and a data company. The limitation to this method is
that, most of the interviewees belong to European organisations. This is partially mitigated
by the global perspective of the interviewees, the global reach of some of their companies,
and the global scope of the subject at hand. The names are not be exposed in order to
reassure free expression of opinions and to ensure their anonymity (Taylor and Bogdan,
1986).

Semi-structured interviews were seen as the most suitable method as they give the
respondents to present new, unpredictable issues and the interviewer to follow up topics
more flexibly. Semi-structured interviewing was conversation- like and, focussed on three
main aspects, the long-term consequences on the supply-side, the potential long-term
changes in passenger behaviour, and the possible long-term regulatory impacts.
4.0 Gantt Chart

Activities Week
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Identify the Problem
Proposal Writing
Data Collection from AOG
Data Collection from CLIVE data services
Data Collection by Interviewing Respondent
Data drafting, Analysing and Data interpretation
Report drafting by Drawing conclusion, reflection and
implication
Final Report Write up
Documentation and presentation of finding in seminar
5.0 Research Budget

Budget Items Number of Cost per Total Cash In-Kind Notes

Items Items Cost Cost
Kuala Lumpur-
United State of Air Asia
America economy 1 RM 3200 RM 3200 Airline
airfare
1 Month crew RM 3500 RM3500 1 Month x
Accommodation long stay via
Hotel
Promenade
Travel insurance:
90 days, South 90 RM 8.00 RM 720
East Asia
Transcription: 16 RM 7.90 RM 126.40 Quote from
interviews with transcription
foreign 16 service
accents/Language
Access to CLIVE RM 3000 Favoured
data services client rate,
Thing Inc.
Research RM2500 Include
Assistant: 0.1 of 25.91%salary
Academic B.1 on Cost
Total: RM13,046

Justification

Past experience has revealed that one month will give sufficient time to refine and localise
interview questions with research partners at OUM, to construct and test the interview
instrument, finalizing to recruit participants, conduct ten x one-hour interviews with field
notes. The interview session will occur in the duration of three month, which mean, the
process of interviewing is still be conducted even though the researcher are not in USA by
using online meeting application. On the other hand, USA – Kuala Lumpur economy airfare
is grounded on current Air Asia current rate. Note that airfares have been kept to a lowest
by travelling from country to country. 1 month accommodation is based on three stars, long
stay accommodation rates provided by Promenade Hotel. Research assistant are also hired
in order to help with the smoothness of this research and aid in the data analysis and
interpretation. By the help of Research assistant, the overall time to conduct and finished
this research will be shorten which is time efficient.
Refereces.

Suau-Sanchez, P., Voltes-Dorta, A., & Cugueró-Escofet, N. (2020). An early assessment of

the impact of COVID-19 on air transport: Just another crisis or the end of aviation as
we know it? Journal of Transport Geography, 86, 102749.
doi:10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2020.102749

IATA, 2020a. COVID-19. Third Impact Assessment, 24 March 2020a. International Air
Transport Association URL. https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository/publications
economic-reports/third-impact-assessment/.

IATA, 2020b. COVID-19. Fourth Impact Assessment. 14 April 2020b. International Air
Transport Association URL.
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