Kingfisher Airlines

I have taken efforts in this project. However, it would not have been possible without the kind support and help of many individuals and organizations. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all of them.

I am highly indebted to Prof Taruna Parmar, Faculty, Lala Lajpat Rai Institute of Management for her guidance and providing necessary information regarding the project and also for her support in answering my queries.

My thanks and appreciations also go to our colleague and faculty in our college for helping me in developing the project and people who have willingly helped me out with their abilities. I would like to express my special gratitude towards them for their kind co-operation in attending me and giving their precious time and helping me out with the project.

DECLARATION

I, Shah Bhavik, pursuing M.M.S – 1, Semester second at Lala Lajpatrai Institute of Management(LLIM), hereby declare that the Project entitled “A Research Report on Kingfisher Airlines” submitted by me is to best of my knowledge and the report is original and has not been copied or submitted anywhere else. The facts and figures mentioned are true to best of my knowledge.

The problem of this research project is to find out whether Kingfisher Airlines has superior services than all other airlines in india. It should answer the questions about the services of kingfisher and whether people would expect more from Indias first 5 star airline.

OBJECTIVES
PRIMARY OBJECTIVES
* To study the customer satisfaction level for the various services provided by the kingfisher. * To find out the effectiveness of the services provided by kingfisher airlines in respect of other airlines like air india, jet airways etc. SECONDARY OBJECTIVES

* To find the preference of customers of airlines.

Scope Of study
The scope of study of this project is narrow. It mainly focused on kingfisher airlines under the aviation industry. The survey was conducted in the areas of south Bombay and it was filled in by : * Students

* Working Professionals
* Business
* Others

Limitation of study:
The limitations of the research for working of Kingfisher Airlines with regards to customer satisfaction are as follows: * The research study is limited to the geographical boundaries of South Mumbai. * Only the Kingfisher Airlines brand is considered in the research.

Literature Review
A hypothesis (from Greek ὑπόθεσις; plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for an observable phenomenon. The term derives from the Greek, ὑποτιθέναι – hypotithenai meaning “to put under” or “to suppose.” For a hypothesis to be put forward as a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous observations that cannot be satisfactorily explained with the available scientific theories.

In this case, the following hypothesis are to be studied.
Null hypothesis: The services provided by Kingfisher Airlines are not superior to other airlines in India. Alternate hypothesis: The services provided by Kingfisher Airlines are superior to other airlines in India.

Executive Summary

Research proposal for liberalisation of the Indian aviation industry by Dr. Sherry Robert Introduction
The Indian aviation industry is one of the most talked about aviation industries in the world. The major reason behind this interest is its liberalisation. After the latter move, India’s airline passengers began enjoying the benefit of choice because Indian carriers quadrupled in number. As if that was not enough, the country recorded a twenty two percent increase in passenger traffic. (Gramaticas, 2007) Background

In the past, the Indian aviation industry was state owned. This meant that airline carriers could not operate under the laws of the free market. Consequently, the government decided to liberalise this industry by encouraging privately owned airlines to join this lucrative sector. The industry has registered a high entry of numerous low cost airline providers. Only twenty five percent of the domestic market share belongs to government owned companies. The other percentage is by private airlines. This industry has undergone a rigorous transformation as it is a far cry from what it was in the short term. Previous research with regard to this topic has looked at the successes of the Indian aviation industry after liberalisation. However, there are still minimal discussions about some of the problems plaguing the industry currently. Additionally, there are also few predictions about the future of this industry i.e. can India continue with the momentum that it had started with after liberalisation. This means that there is need for an examination into the likely problems that could slow down this growth or halt it altogether. (Gramaticas, 2007) Statement of objective

The key objective for the research will be ‘To assess whether the Indian aviation industry has the ability to sustain its growth rates in the near future’ Some of the specific objectives that will be examined here include; 1) Comparison of the Indian aviation industry’s situational factors with that of the US aviation sector in order to determine level of liberalisation 2) To examine problems facing the industry today and how these can reflect on the future problems 3) To asses whether India’s population and infrastructure is capable of handling such rapid expansion The overall objective will be measured over a period of ten years i.e. whether the Indian aviation industry can sustain its growth over the next ten years.

Research Methods
Objective number one can be done by assessing some of the major indicators of success (such as traffic rights of airline carriers, degree of multiple carrier designation, number of destinations from India to the rest of the world, level of code hire operations, quality of cargo services and type of aircrafts used) against the backdrop of another successful aviation industry i.e. the US. This measurement will mainly be done through secondary research where aviation data for the US and also India will be compared. This method was chosen because it would be difficult to get a summary of a country’s aviation industry from a specific airline or individual. Consequently, using a summary of the facts would yield more reliable results.(Centre for Management research, 2007)

The second specific objective will be measured by assessing the operational environment in India. It should be noted that this current success may simply be an indication of overall momentum within the sector. New players in the market have not yet stabilised and there may be some unforeseen problems in the future. The third objective is with regard to Infrastructural requirements. The airline industry is painstakingly demanding with regard to capital investments. There is a need to assess India’s readiness for these airline expansions. The latter two objectives will be measured through interviews for major Airline carriers in India. They are at a position to assess India’s current situation. Besides that, it will also assess some closely related industries that act as the aviation industry’s supplier.

Sample Size:
Sample size means the number of people to be surveyed or included in the research project. In this project twenty individuals were sampled.

Sampling Unit –
Sampling unit is the unit used for sampling. The population should be divisible into a finite number of distinct, non-overlapping units, so that each member of the population belongs to only one sampling unit. In this study sampling units are students, working professionals, business and others. They were sampled throughout South Mumbai. Sampling Frame-

Sample Frame are those individuals or organizations from which one selects the actual sample for the survey. Ideally, the sample frame is the same as the target population. For this project the sample frame would be the population of Mumbai ages 18 to 30.

Sample design

Doing research via sampling was important because of impossibility of finding all of a population, as well as other restrictive parameters like cost, time etc. Our sampling decision should be in-coordination with the research and data objectives. The method opted for taking samples was `Non-probability sampling’.

It was a `Purposive Non-probability sampling/ Judgement Sampling’ was used. The key assumption underlined this type of sampling is that, with sound judgement or expertise, and an appropriate strategy, one can carefully and consciously choose the elements to be included in the sample, so that samples can be developed that are suitable for one’s needs. My objective for using `Judgement Sampling’ was that since airline travel is not experienced by everybody, so `Judgement Sampling’ was a must to get the closest and the correct response.Sample Size: – •20 passengers/ respondents

Method of Data Collection:-
Survey/ Personal Contact Method:- In a survey, the researcher carries out opinion polls involving customers, sales persons, dealers, traders and experts. In the survey, the main method of interviewing was by Personal Interviews, as this gave me a better understanding of the needs and preferences of the passenger. Most of the data is quantitative in nature and supported by qualitative data. Instruments for data collection: –

The research instruments used for this survey were structured questionnaires. The questionnaires were designed to find the satisfaction levels of Domestic Airlines, in particular, Kingfisher Airlines.

Data Analysis and Interpretation

FINDINGS
After the survey done it was found that the critical value was higher than the table value and thus we reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypothesis, which states that Kingfisher airlines has superior and better services than all other airlines in india

Type I error, also known as an “error of the first kind”, an α error, or a “false positive”: the error of rejecting a null hypothesis when it is actually true. Plainly speaking, it occurs when we are observing a difference when in truth there is none, thus indicating a test of poor specificity. An example of this would be if a test shows that a woman is pregnant when in reality she is not. Type I error can be viewed as the error of excessive credulity.

Suggestions
* In this extremely competitive environment suggestions are extreme importance. Kingfisher Airlines with rich Human Resource should look forward to such suggestion and reward individual whose suggestion were actually beneficial for the organization * Kingfisher Airlines can introduce Late bird / Night bird flights between metros * Kingfisher Airlines should schedule more number of flights to and from station like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Collate, Bangalore as these sectors account for high payload * Kingfisher Airlines should make provisions to add up more financial benefits for its passenger * New approaches should be identified and rewarded so that it serves as example for others

Recommendations

By doing a research on Kingfisher Airlines the chi square value that was obtained is 40.29 and the table value is 28.3 thus the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative hypothesis is taken into consideration. Thus has been proved that Kingfisher airlines has superior services than any other airline in india. After doing a study of this project representing on Kingfisher Airlines, I have come to a conclusion that Kingfisher Airlines is one of the largest and most widespread airlines of the country providing its services not only in India as well as outside India also. It has alliance with many other airlines in this sector. Kingfisher Airlines offers world class services to the customer at a nominal rate. The national carrier takes immense pride in having successfully played a pivotal role in making various facets of India popular with the people of the world and acting as the country’s cultural ambassador. The airline uses the services of one of the advanced plans been operated in the world. To sum up I would like to say that Kingfisher Airlines is serving its customer in an appreciated way and going to be in the list of best services providers in coming years.

Questionnaire

Name:
Sex: O Female
O Male
Occupation: O Student
O Working Professional
O Business
O Others
1. Which airlines would you prefer travelling by?
O Kingfisher Airlines
O Jet Lite
O Air India
O If any other, please specify

2. Services provided by Kingfisher Airlines are superior with respect to other airlines in India. O Strongly agree O Agree O some-what agree O Disagree O Strongly disagree

3. Rates of Kingfisher Airlines are satisfying.
O Strongly agree O Agree O Some-what agree O Disagree O Strongly disagree

4. The services provided by Kingfisher Airlines are worth the price. O Strongly agree O Agree O Some-what agree O Disagree O Strongly disagree

5. Kingfisher Airlines have delays in their flight departure timings quiet often. O Strongly agree O Agree O Some-what agree O Disagree O Strongly disagree

6. The brand-image of Kingfisher Beer has affected the sales of Kingfisher Airlines in a positive manner. O Strongly agree O Agree O Some-what agree O Disagree O Strongly disagree

7. Kingfisher Beer is more heard-about compared to Kingfisher Airlines. O Strongly agree O Agree O Some-what agree O Disagree O Strongly disagree

8. Kingfisher Airlines should introduce better services.
O Strongly agree O Agree O Some-what agree O Disagree O Strongly disagree

9. Customers are attracted to Kingfisher Airlines because of their
attractive air-hostesses. O Strongly agree O Agree O Some-what agree O Disagree O Strongly disagree

10. How was the kingfisher class experience overall?
O Delighted
O Ok
O Bad
O Not so good
O If any other, Specify