Competitiveness and gaining a sustainable competitive advantage are very important factors when analysing the success of companies involved in the aviation industry in South Africa. The success of these companies will depend on their ability to maintain technological capabilities in the areas of human resources and product development. Global aviation currently is concentrated in a few countries, with the USA being the largest contributor to an industry which is regarded as one of the fastest globalizing industries in terms of market structure and production systems. In South Africa, companies have managed to develop skills in aviation manufacturing. The opportunities that will be created, owing to changes in global production chains, will enable South African companies to establish themselves further as global suppliers. The aviation industry contains high risks, especially because it is considered to be the industry which acts as a driver for innovation. Complexity of production, the capital-intensive nature and high risks involved in developing new products and services have linked the industry to inevitable political influence and support. The industry can broadly be divided into two main sectors: military and commercial. Analysts predict that opportunities in the global aviation markets in future will increase considerably. This is attributed to more Asian, African and Latin-American regions capitalizing on opportunities that exist mainly within the commercial sector. They will form strategic alliances which will enable them to perform on low-cost platforms and offer exceptional services to major players in the aviation sector. To capitalize on these opportunities, companies need to analyse their external and internal environment. The main objective of this study is to analyse and to evaluate the competitive environment of a selected aviation company, to ensure that the best strategy is chosen and adopted and to confirm that the company can create and sustain a competitive advantage over competitors. The planning tools utilized in this study are the PEST and SWOT analyses. Both have been used in the strategic planning process of many other firms. These analyses have proved to be the key element needed to formulate an action plan to be and to stay competitive in the aviation industry. This study evaluates both of these planning tools and applies them to the company chosen for this case study. / MCom (Management Accountancy), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Aviation biofuel is technically viable and nearing the commercial stage. In the last 5 years aviation biofuel has moved from relative obscurity to become fully certified for commercial use in up to 50% blends with standard jet fuel. There have since been 15 successful commercial flight tests using aviation biofuels including Lufthansa s six month trial operating on a passenger revenue generating route in 2011. Airlines and biofuel companies such as British Airways and Solena are furthermore beginning to form partnerships to finance specialised aviation biofuel production facilities. However, aviation biofuels have yet to become widely commercialised. In fact, there are a series of issues preventing the emergence, development and uptake of aviation biofuels. The main issues are perceived as high costs of manufacture, limited availability of feedstocks, controversy surrounding the effect on food prices and the emissions output from land use change. Furthermore, there is a significant lack of academic peer reviewed literature which investigates these issues or offers solutions to support the development of the technology. This thesis aims to investigate the factors that affect the emergence, development and uptake of aviation biofuels by drawing upon in-depth stakeholder interviews and survey data. Strategic niche management (SNM) theory is used and extended to analyse the contemporary issues and develop recommendations to support the continued emergence, development and uptake of aviation biofuels. It is concluded that the emergence, development and uptake is being driven mainly by rising jet fuel prices, growing concern regarding aviation emissions legislation and fuel (in)security. Airlines, biofuel producers and specialised supply chain companies are driving emergence, development and uptake due to commercial opportunities. Despite these drivers, the emergence, development and uptake is being constrained by a combination of ineffective policy provision, high costs of production, limited feedstocks and uncertainty surrounding sustainability. Ineffective and unsuitable policy is exacerbating the issues of high production costs, limited feedstocks and sustainability. In particular, competition between aviation and road biofuels is limiting aviation biofuel expansion. Recommendations are to develop nurtured niche markets for aviation biofuels using principles from SNM. Within these markets, aviation biofuels are afforded commercial viability in order to learn about supply chain development, longer term infrastructural requirements and technological development. Information should be shared between the niche markets in order to maximise learning by doing and speed up efficiency gains. Once niche markets are established, the incentives and protection should be gradually reduced to allow a competitive aviation biofuel industry to develop.

<p>Flyget är ett viktigt transportmedel i vårt utvecklade samhälle och det används i många olika sammanhang, men de vanligaste sammanhangen som man kanske först kommer att tänka på är flyget som transportmedel för privatresenärer eller affärsresenärer.</p><p>Globaliseringen har resulterat i att människor har fått ett ökat behov av att resa och detta har medfört att flygbranschen spelar en större roll idag än tidigare. Den ökade efterfrågan på antalet flygresor i kombination med avregleringen av flygmarknaden har på ett naturligt sätt medfört att antalet flygbolag har ökat och givetvis konkurrensen med dem. Konkurrensen har drivit ner priset på flygbiljetterna och lågprisflygbolagen har varit de stora vinnarna i den här duellen. De har redan från början insett resenärernas behov av att kunna resa billigt och ta sig snabbt och enkelt dit de vill. De satsade på detta koncept och kunde genomföra det i och med att de såg till att kostnadseffektivisera i varje led. Detta visade sig vara väldigt framgångsrikt och de mer traditionella flygbolagen har mer eller mindre blivit tvungna att haka på konceptet med billiga flygbiljetter i någon form, för att bibehålla sin konkurrenskraft på marknaden. Lågprisflyget förväntas ta marknadsandelar och vara framgångsrikt även i framtiden.</p><p>Syftet med denna uppsats har varit att undersöka hur flygbranschen ser ut idag. Vilka tendenser som är speciellt framträdande, vilken riktning flygbranschen är på väg åt och vad man använder sig av för strategier för att erbjuda kunderna mervärde. Vi har kallat detta för en branschanalys, och i och med att vi inte kunnat bearbeta varje flygbolag i hela branschen, har vi låtit fem flygbolag få karaktärisera branschen i stort. De flygbolag som vi valt att studera närmare är: Malmö Aviation, SAS, Ryan air, Fly Me och Sterling.</p><p>Vi har utfört denna undersökning genom en kvalitativ fallstudie. Detta har vi gjort därför att vi velat undersöka de olika bolagen på ett djupgående och holistiskt sätt. Informationen som vi använt oss av har vi fått genom dagsfärska tidningsartiklar, flygbolagens olika hemsidor och kanske framförallt genom intervjuer från flygbolagens olika representanter och en intervju från luftfartsverket.</p><p>I den här uppsatsen kommer vi också att behandla framtida möjligheter för flygbranschen, så som exempelvis allianssammanslutningar och andra samarbetsformer. Miljöfrågorna har kommit att diskuteras mer och mer under senare tid och dessa aspekter har vi också tagit hänsyn till i uppsatsen. En del av syftet med uppsatsen har dessutom varit att undersöka vad de olika bolagen gör för att tillfredställa kunder och därmed hålla kvar sin konkurrenskraft på marknaden.</p>

Includes supplemental material. / This report outlines the results of a two quarter Total Ship Systems Engineering (TSSE) Capstone design project undertaken by the students at the Naval Postgraduate School. The project was under the direction of Professors C.N. Calvano and R.Harney. / Currently, no system exists that provides a sea-based distributed aviation platform capability. The emergence of Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) / Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs), the continued U.S. Navy focus on the littorals, the desire for force distribution, the need for operational cost reductions, and the advent of Network Centric Warfare (NCW) all continue to support the requirement to re-evaluate how littoral operations will be conducted in the future. Given this background, a bottom-up design of a ship supporting a primarily UAV/UCAV air wing in a low to medium threat environment is of significant interest. SEA ARCHER meets this interest. This report outlines a design that meets the future needs for distributed aviation with a high-speed, highly automated platform. Large gains in reduced manning through automated systems for both operation and damage control helpmeet the demanding needs for the future of the Navy at reduced operational costs. The report will outline both the Mission Needs Statement (MNS) and Operational Requirements Document (ORD) for the ship that was developed. The analysis of alternatives that was conducted to determine relative size requirements for the ship in presented in the next section. The concept design that resulted as a result of the Total Ship Systems Engineeing process in then presented. Finally, a detailed look at the analysis and trade studies that were conducted in presented in order to show the more detailed analysis that was conducted in designing the ship.

The investigation and modelling of aviation accident causation is dominated by linear models. Aviation is, however, a complex system and as such suffers from being artificially manipulated into non-complex models and methods. This thesis addresses this issue by developing a new approach to investigating aviation accident causation through information networks. These networks centralise communication and the flow of information as key indicators of a system‟s health and risk. The holistic approach focuses on the system itself rather than any individual event. The activity and communication of constituent elements, both human and non-human agents, within that system is identified and highlights areas of system failure. The model offers many potential developments and some key areas are studied in this research. Through the centralisation of barriers and information nodes the method can be applied to almost any situation. The application of Bayesian mathematics to historical data populations provides scope for studying error migration and barrier manipulation. The thesis also provides application of these predictions to a flight simulator study in an attempt of validation. Beyond this the thesis also discusses the applicability of the approach to industry. Through working with a legacy airline the methods discussed are used as the basis for a new and forward-thinking safety management system. This holistic approach focuses on the system environment, the activity that takes place within it, the strategies used to conduct this activity, the way in which the constituent parts of the system (both human and non-human) interact and the behaviour required. Each stage of this thesis identifies and expands upon the potential of the information network approach maintaining firm focus on the overall health of a system. It is contended that through the further development and application of this approach, understanding of aviation risk can be improved.

This thesis investigates the rise of aviation and its influence on modernist literature in the first half of the twentieth century, arguing that the emergence of heavier-than-air flight facilitated experimentation and innovation in modernist writing in order to capture the new experience of flight and its impact on the modern world. Previous critical discussions largely focus on militarist and nationalist ideas and beliefs regarding the uses of the aeroplane, and in doing so overlook the diversity of attitudes and approaches towards aviation that had greater influence on modernist thought. Through a historicist reading of a selection of modernist texts, this study extends scholarly debates by linking alternative views of aviation and modernist literary and narrative experimentation. I begin my study by exploring how H.G. Wells's calls for the establishment of a world government (necessitated by the emergence of aviation) led to an increasingly assertive and urgent tone in his later writings. His works serve as a useful starting point to read the more experimental, modernist prose forms that follow in his wake. While Wells's texts were affected on a pragmatic level, those of the modernists were affected in a more imaginative, perceptual, and sensory way, which highlights the deeper extent to which aviation influenced modernist thought. For Virginia Woolf, the all-encompassing aerial view offered a new way of seeing the connections between living things, leading to an expanded narrative scope in her later writings. For William Faulkner, flight as aerial performance and spectacle was a liberating experience and became a metaphor for escape from an increasingly capitalistic and creativity-deprived world. John Dos Passos, in contrast, saw the effects of air travel as harmful to the human senses and perceptions of the world around, leading him to incorporate aspects of flight into his fast-paced, multi-modal narratives in order to convey and critique the disorienting and alienating experience of flight. Collectively, these chapters show that as much as the aeroplane was capable of causing mass destruction, it was also constructive in the way that it enabled these new ways of thinking, and it is this complex and paradoxical nature, this thesis proposes, that makes the aeroplane an important modernist symbol.

Human Systems Integration Report / Detailed research conducted over the past forty years has conclusively determined that varying degrees of sleep loss, shifts in sleep cycle, increased stress and even changes in time zone with respect to daylight transition result in a myriad of physiological and psychological degradations (Helmreich, 2000). Fatigue affects human performance, resulting in predictable changes not only on the individual level but also on the system as a whole. This descriptive study investigates the amount and quality of sleep received by aviation personnel assigned to an operational squadron conducting mine hunting operations. Wrist activity monitors (actigraphs) were used to determine objective assessments of sleep quantity and quantity. Demographic variables and additional measures such as reported sleepiness, fatigue ratings, caffeine and alcohol use, were also collected. Despite a number of factors which altered the original study design, significant differences in amount of sleep, sleep quality and predicted effectiveness of personnel by officer-enlisted status were identified.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / The author examines the incremental costs and benefits associated with a change from six-month unit deployments to one-year unit deployments. The analysis is based primarily on five fighter squadrons participating in the Marine Corps' Unit Deployment Program and takes in the period July 1976 to October 1988. Regression analysis is used to project transportation cost savings of $4 million in real terms from FY 1989 through FY 1993. With a change to a one-year Unit Deployment Program, fighter squadrons should experience net increases in aircraft readiness, aircrew training readiness, and personnel retention. / http://archive.org/details/oneyearudpcostbe00hack / Lieutenant Colonel, United States Marine Corps

In the decades following the Revolution, government officials and industrialists attempted to strike a balance between preserving a unique national identity and asserting Mexico's place in global affairs as a competitive, modern nation. Veneration of the aviators' bravery and technological mastery cut across political and cultural boundaries, setting standards for the model citizen of a modern world. The symbolic figure of the pilot proved an adept vessel for disseminating the values championed by the country's ruling party. Aviators validated the technological determinism that underpinned the government's development philosophy to domestic audiences, while projecting an image of strength abroad. This study explores the spectacle of aviation in cultural events including film, airshows, goodwill flights, and state-sponsored funerals, connecting the history of aviation to often-conflicting discourses of Revolutionary nationalism and modern cosmopolitanism that were espoused by both national and regional elites.

This thesis expands on the literature in the under-researched field of airline risk management by exploring organisational structures and practices of airline risk management systems and their technical and institutional drivers. In particular, it focuses on the phenomenon of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) and its alignment to the requirements of airline business contexts. The theoretical framework informing this study combines structural contingency theory with two strands of institutional theory, namely old institutional economics and new institutional sociology. In this thesis, the phenomenon of risk management is investigated in situ as an organisational practice through a two-stage empirical study. Firstly, an exploratory field study was undertaken in a panel of ten international airlines. Secondly, the field study was complemented with findings from two explanatory case studies. This study explains how in developing risk management systems airlines balance the sometimes conflicting technical and institutional demands of their respective task and institutional environments. The adoption and implementation of ERM in airlines are found to be driven primarily by coercive and normative pressures, and expectations of improved organisational effectiveness and efficiency. This study additionally improves general understanding of the nature of ERM and its coupling and fluidity in the organisational settings of airlines. It lends evidence for systematic variations in roles, uses, and organisational design choices of ERM systems. It shows the interdependent nature of airlines’ ERM systems and other management systems. The study also demonstrates that the adoption of ERM in airlines drives development of new institutions, rules, and routines for comprehensive management of risks. Consistent with the tenets of contingency theory, this study conveys lack of a universally appropriate design of an airline ERM system. The main contribution of this thesis is to assess airline risk management systems, identify core drivers of effective risk management practice, and provide a framework with the aim of guiding airlines in the development of enterprise-wide risk management approaches aligned with the requirements of their institutional and technical contexts. Furthermore, this research overcomes the limitations of previous, mostly quantitative studies of ERM coupling and dynamics in organisations, as it explores and explains the structures, practices, and rationales of airline risk management systems within wider organisational contexts through the use of qualitative methodologies.