Project Planning for Opening New Destinations for Global Air Carriers

Abstract

Announcing new flight routes for promising overseas destinations is a sign of stepping into global business for airlines. Opening new flight lines means expanding the product line for any airline. New destinations in turn mean gaining new customers while retaining the existing ones. That is the main reason why global airlines continually seek for new destinations to extend their flight network. This process is a very complex one with a lot tasks and resource requirements. The projected opening date sets the deadline for all the activities. Project management principles needs to be employed to meet these deadlines in order not to experience any delay. To illustrate this problem a new destination project for Turkish Airlines (THY) is explored in detail. THY, as a global network carrier, is planning to expand its operations spectrum and in achieving that makes intensive use of PERT method. This process is illustrated briefly in the paper.