Individual Reflection
Done by Mr. Chin We Chun
YOUR CONTRIBUTION
How have you contributed to the team to prepare and complete the project?
I was technically the timekeeper for the project, my job was to make sure that my team members were on task and on time when we meet up to do the project. I also had to follow the gantt chart that the team has already worked on and make sure that we follow the gantt chart in order to be on track to complete the project before deadline. I also had to remind my teammates about what has to be done in each page and the various individual deadlines for them. It was a good experience for me as I was able to learn that time management is an important factor and we have to manage our time well in projects or even in individual work so as to hand in quality work within the deadline.
I also contributed to the project by doing the tasks that I was assigned to do. Some of them includes the Operation Model of the airports, Air Traffic Statistics and Key Airport Partners. I research on the various contents and make sure that the content that I have gotten from the websites are reliable by cross checking with other websites so as to provide reliable information. I also design the section that I was assigned to so as to ensure that the website is appealing to our clients and be able to attract them. I also had to come up with the various graphs and analyze the data in order for my teammtes to do the evaluation of the flights.
(256 words)
TEAMWORK (POSITIVE)
What are the areas that you have observed which your team has done well during the project? What have you learned from these observations which you can apply in future?
When any of the team members has queries, he will voice it out and the other team members will try their best to help. We always try to help each other when anyone of us face difficulties. For me I feel that our team collaborated very well and work well together, helping one another, guiding one another. I can apply this in the future as when in the work society, many of my colleagues are bound to have obstacles, and if I am able to help them, that will be good, and that’s how good teamwork is all about. Helping one another is always crucial in the society as everyone is stronger as a team.
Another area will be we will come together and decide on the major decision together, an example will be who will be assigned to do which task and what are the various milestones in this project. This is important as equal amount of work has to be given to every group member so as to allow equal distribution and if any one the group members feel that the allocation of work is too much for him to handle, we will discuss who is able to help out with the group members tasks and work together. This will be useful in the future as maybe in the future, being a leader, you will have to make decisions on who is responsible for which task or deliverable. If any of your colleagues feel that he or she is handling too much of work at one go, you will be able to learn to ask other colleagues to help with him or her as the saying goes “Teamwork makes the dream work”
(284 words)
TEAMWORK (TO BE IMPROVED)
What are the areas that you have observed which your team could have improved? What have you learned from these observations which you could take note of when you work in teams in future?
An area that I feel that my team can improve will be we could have started the project earlier. There were some parts of the project whereby we felt a little stress as we had to complete our tasks by the target that we had set in our gantt chart. If we had started our project just a few days earlier, maybe we will not be as stress and done our research and compilation comfortably. This will be an important takeaway from this project as in the future, when we are in the working environment or in group projects, what we can do is to start the project earlier and give ourselves comfortable time to do the tasks assigned.
Another area that I feel that my team can improve on will be our background research. Our team came together at first and decided that we will be doing another airport instead of KLIA, however when we went to do some deep research about the airport information, there were some information that we could not understand as the language that was given was not in English or something that we could understand. And therefore, we had to change our airport after already doing some deep research which could have taken some time. This could also be crucial in the future as it is important to do some background research before starting on any projects or tasks assigned. An example will be in a workplace environment, the team members wil have to do some background research regarding the tasks in the agenda in order to know how to contribute. What is important is that always do some background before starting on a task and plan ahead.
(284 words)
SELF LEARNING EVALUATION
What are the key areas about Airport Operations and Management that you have learnt from the project?
The first area that I have learnt from this project will be understanding the different Airport Partners that an airport can have. Different airports will have different airport partners and all of them must work together to ensure that the airport will be able to function smoothly. An example will be during this COVID 19 period, The ministry of health will be working together with the airport to ensure that travellers entering Singapore does not have symptoms of the virus so as to ensure that they do not spread the virus to others. I also learnt that Air Traffic Services of an airport can be provided by government or privately, but for the airports that we were researching on, both of their Air Traffic Services are provided by the government which is something quite interesting.
Another area that I have learnt from this project will be the various access modes that an airport can have. I learnt that there are different modes passengers can get to the airport or from the airport and to the various cities they want to go to. In the two airports that I did, both of them had rail and road access but did not have other access modes such as by water and air. There were also several interesting things which I found out, one of them being passengers are able to check in at the rail station before heading to the airport and this allows passengers to have more shopping time at the city areas. A good airport should have different kind of access modes to allow passengers to have a choice of how they want to get to the airport or how they want to get from the airport to their final destination. Access modes can also determine the passenger experience as if the access modes to the airport are poor, the passenger may be unhappy and may not want to visit the airport again, which in turn result in poor reputation of the airport.
The third area I have learnt will be the various operation model of the airports which incldues government owned and control, Government owned with decentralised control, Mixed public/private ownership and privately owned and operated. For the two airports that we were researching about, they were both government owned with decentralised control which also means that the government owns the airport however the government delegates the operation and control to another airport operator. However, based on what I have seen from what other groups have researched on, there are many airports in the world with different operation model. For example in Zurich, the operation model of the airport is Mixed public/private ownership and control, which is quite common in the Europe but not in Asia.
The fourth area that I have learnt are the various types of parking facilities that are available at an airport. There are 4 types of parking facilites which are short term parking, long term parking, long term remote parking and lastly, other parking. For Kuala Lumpur International Airport, they provide long term parking for the passengers as most people in Malaysia have their own cars and they will drive their own cars to the airport before travelling overseas, and the long term parking will be ideal for them as they will not have to pay the high parking rates at the short term parking. However, from what I have learnt from researching, long term parking are normally quite far away from the main terminal of the airport which will require the travellers to either take a shuttle bus that is provided by the airport or walk around 10-15minutes to the long term parking area. I also learnt that short term parking are within close proximity of the main terminal which are built for visitors to the airport, an example will be greeters who visit the airport to send their relatives or friends overseas, they will not want their cars to be parked far away from the terminal as they will only spend around 2-3 hours at the airport and will like to collect their cars as fast as possible. The disadvantage of the short term parking will be the expensive parking rates which may in turn discourage visitors to the airport from driving their personal cars but instead take other access modes such as bus and rail.
The fifth area which I learnt will be the Passenger Arrival Rate. The Passenger Arrival Rate will show the number of passengers that check in at each time interval starting from T-120 to T-15. From the Passenger Arrival Rate, we will be able to tell who are the predominant passengers of that flight. An example will be if there are more passengers checking in at T-120 or T-105, most probably the passengers are leisure passengers as they will like to spend more time at the airport shopping and they may be afraid they may miss their flight and they check in earlier. However if there are more passengers checking in at T-30, most probably the passengers are business travellers who does not want to spend time at the airport other than board the aircraft and reach the destination as fast as possible. They will also be most probably very familiar with the airport procedures and will be fast to get from check in to the aircraft gate. The passenger arrival rate will also be to important to calculate the number of staff required as the airlines will not want their passengers to wait very long at the check in counters which may in turn bring down passenger experience and also the reputation of the airport. With the passenger arrival rate, airlines will be able to plan the amount of staff nicely and not have insufficient staff at the counters.
All in all, I feel that there are many elements that could affect the operations and reputation of the airport, which include airport access, airport parking facilities. Most importantly, it is also crucial to know that when a passenger arrive at a country via air, the first thing they will see is the airport, the airport will be an important factor if the passenger will enjoy the experience at the country or not, as bad airport facilities will definitely affect the passenger mood and mindset of the country.
(1052 words)
PROJECT EVALUATION
How do you find the project? Is there anything you will like to feedback to improve the project?
I find the project is quite interesting to do as it requires us to do research on various airports and understand more about the airports, an example will be understanding the history of the airport which is something that not many people will know about including myself. The project is also very interesting in the sense that we are an aviation consultant company whereby we have to think of how we can attract clients to pick us as their ideal company, this will be able to allow the innovative side of the brain to work and think of how we can make the website look more attractive. Being someone who is really interested in the aviation sector, this project was really fun to do, being able to know about the various flights and the kind of passengers that the flight tend to carry.
Something that can be improved will be regarding the Passenger Arrival Rate, it will be so much better if we are able to get down to the airport and truly understand who are the pre-dominant passengers of each flight, however, due to COVID 19 we are unable to do that, which is really a pity as I feel that will be a good experience to understand how Passenger Arrival really works.
Another area that can be improved will be the time period from the feedback that is given from our batch mates to the deadline of the project, the time period is a little too short around 1 week, which I feel that is maybe a bit too little to do the edits to suit our clients needs, maybe extending the time period to 2 weeks will be better to allow us to truly understand their feedback and edit accordingly.
(294 words)