Individual Reflection
Done by Mr. Tan Zhenyu
YOUR CONTRIBUTION
How have you contributed to the team to prepare and complete the project?
I have definitely contributed to the team by helping with the dissemination of the tasks to the other group members so that everyone does an equal amount of work and that we can complete the project quickly and effectively. Making sure that everyone does an equal amount of work is essential so that the responsibility of the project is shared among everyone, and no one should be doing lesser or getting a free ride as it is unfair to the rest of the group members who put in their hard work.
I have also contributed in my own part, which is doing research on the Civil Aviation Authorities, Government agencies related to the different airports, Singapore Changi Airport and Kuala Lumpur International Airport, and also the Comparison of both flights. Taking responsibility for my own part and doing it to the best of my efforts is important as this is a group project, and that my work can indirectly affect my group members’ marks. Therefore, so as to not let their hard work go to waste, I must ensure that my own work is up to standard. Apart from just working on my own part, we also occasionally look at the other group members’ work to advise them if they are missing anything in their research. This also encourages better learning and understanding of the whole project, and not just know your own parts. It is also evident in the feedback of our website, given by students from other groups, that our website was very informative and did not lack anything.
(261 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?
One key area we had done well was in the form of communication. Communication is important between group members as it allows members to understand each other, and be understood. This way, better ideas can be put out onto the table and bring the whole team a step forward. I think we really did well as we were familiar with each other from the start of the project, therefore it was very easy for us to speak up about various ideas and issues. Everyone was very clear about their roles, and information and instructions from the group leader can be passed down to the rest of the group members in a fast and concise way. This is important in the future because when we are in the workplace, to ensure the company performs up to standard and make money, the passing down of information from the leaders to the members must be done in a way so that the members fully understand the instructions of their work and deliver the results as expected.
Another key area that we have done well is our time management. Using the Gantt chart that we did, we were able to keep track of the tasks needed to be done by their certain deadlines, and this way, we never had to rush for the project deadline. Time management is a very important skill not only in the workplace, but also in everyday lives. Having good time management skills would mean not only a good balance between work and life but also lesser stress placed on yourself from rushing last minute work.
(266 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?
One key area that we can improve on is our decision making. Because we can choose any destination airport that a Singaporean based airline, we originally chose Taiwan Taoyuan airport. However, after a week into choosing the airport, some of our team members suggested changing the airport to our final one, Kuala Lumpur International Airport, as they were more familiar with that airport. That meant that the work done so far had to be restarted as it is based on a new airport. Luckily, it was only the start of the project, so not much progress was lost. However, it is an area that we can improve on as decisiveness plays a big part in our lives in future. Being decisive allows us to not only make fast decisions, but good decisions as well, and success is based on the many decisions that we make in life.
The other key area that we can improve on is our planning of the project overall. While we were able to meet the deadlines of the tasks that we assigned according to the gantt chart that we did, we did the deadlines to meet the submission deadline with some time to spare. However, we forgot to factor in the other modules’ projects as part of our planning. In the end, we realised that we had to finish this project way earlier to provide us time to do the other projects, or do the other projects first and leave this to the last as they had about the same deadlines. However, we were ultimately able to complete the project on time. This is an area to improve on for our future projects so that we make sure projects do not clash with each other and this leads to better use of our time and energy.
(301 words)
SELF LEARNING EVALUATION
What are the key areas about Airport Operations and Management that you have learnt from the project?
The key areas that I have learnt about Airport Operations and Management is the airport access, airport partners, and the landside operations.
Airport access: It plays an important role to the airports because if no one can reach the airport, the airport is useless as there will be no one to use it. It is also important that the methods for transporting people to the airport is effective to ensure that passengers are able to reach the airport and check-in to their flights on time and also for workers to start their various duties on time to ensure that the airport is running smoothly for flights to take off on time. From this project, I understand that airport access plays a big role in the smooth facilitation for airports. Impeccable airport access will bring about better facilitation, and therefore bring benefits to the economy of the country. For this project, the research done by my group member shows the many different ways that the airport is connected to the many parts of the country. In order to know whether the airport has good airport access, the modes of airport access will be assessed based on the 3 considerations of airport access which is the time taken to travel to the airport, the reliability of access mode, and the check-in requirements. The different modes of airport access at KLIA includes road access and rail access. Road access to the airport includes automobiles, taxis, buses and coaches. After evaluation of the different modes of airport access, it is noted that rail access are the better way of airport access due to the reliability and the fact that there will be little to no congestion as compared to automobiles. This is not only seen in our report, but some of the other groups as well. Also, researching about airport access also led me to find out about the existence of Off-airport check-in facilities. Prior to this project, I did not know that there was such a facility, and I feel that it should be implemented everywhere in the world at key transit points such as train stations and bus terminals due to the fact that it can reduce congestion in the airport by providing a form of check-in somewhere else and promote better facilitation.
Airport partners: Airport Partners are, without a doubt, an important role to airport operators. For an airport to be successful, airport partners must create a good working relationship with the many types of airport partners like Civil Aviation Authority of the state, Airlines, Ground Handlers and Government Agencies. The Civil Aviation Authority acts as an airport partners as it enables the growth of the air hub and aviation industry, provide air navigation services, develop Singapore as a centre of excellence for aviation knowledge and talent development, and oversees and promotes safety in the industry. It also set policies, conduct inspections, audits and investigations of the airport to ensure that it is safe for passengers to use. Each signatory country with ICAO has a civil aviation authority to harmonise and standardise the use of airspace for safety, efficiency and regularity of air transport, and therefore, the Civil Aviation Authority passes information provided by ICAO to the airport operators and also share ways on how the airport operator can further improve the airport to either make it safer or encourage better flow of passengers to improve passenger’s experience. Government Agencies are also considered as airport partners as the airport is a gateway for many passengers and goods to pass through to enter Singapore. The different government agencies include Immigration, Customs, Agriculture, Health, and Airport security departments. The various agencies have their roles to fufil at this gateway, like for the Customs department, it makes sure that no prohibited items or goods are smuggled into the country. In the process of researching about the health departments, I could not find any info on what it does with the airport. However, due to the ongoing pandemic that is happening worldwide, it made me realise the importance of the partnership between the Health department and the airport, especially in current times. The Health department works together with not only the airport, but also various entry and exit points of the country to monitor visitors to screen for any viruses, and preventing the virus to spread further into the country.
Landside Operations: The landside operations of the airport is important for the whole facilitation of the airport. While landside operations is not a big part of the project’s content and requirements, it is important to decode the passengers’ PAR table, which will be elaborated further on. The landside operations starts from the kerb management, which is to provide a safe safe stopping place for vehicles to load and unload passengers and their luggage. The airport, in the designing of the kerbside, must ensure that they should plan to provide a kerb that meets traffic at peak periods, and take into account the mix of road access modes by separating arrivals and departures kerb in 2 levels, one or more lanes, and several entrances to spread traffic. There should also be traffic enforcement to limit the pick up and drop off time, separate areas for private vehicles, public transportation and coaches, A remote holding area should be provided for taxis to avoid congestion, and a delivery point, located away from passenger traffic should be provided. All these is done to ensure that there would not be crowds and lines of cars waiting at the entry point of the terminal, which would hold passengers up and disrupt the whole flow of the airport. In the airport, crowds will form at various processing points including, check-in, security screening, immigration and customs control points, access points to public transportation. Therefore, crowd control is crucial at airports. Some forms of crowd control is to install stanchions so that people queue and wait in an orderly fashion, ensure processing points are adequately staffed, especially during peak periods, automate processing to reduce queuing time and crowding, and during peak periods, deploy staff to control the size and shape of queues by asking people to move to certain locations. To link the PAR table to landside operations, the airline must dispatch more staff at busier timings between the opening and closing of the check-in counter to ensure that the number of staff can be effectively used in serving the number of expected passengers, therefore reducing the amount of crowds and queues, and ultimately resulting in a smooth experience for both passengers and airport.
(1090 words)
PROJECT EVALUATION
How do you find the project? Is there anything you will like to feedback to improve the project?
I feel that this project is effective about teaching us about the different aspects of airport operations and how they are implemented in real life airports all in one project. The project is also manageable in the sense that many of the information can be found in the resources and sites such as CAPA aviation and the sites of the airport itself. Because we can choose the airport that we want to work on, it is easier to choose the major airports on the same scale as Changi Airport as their informations are the easiest to find. Based on the content of the website, it includes some, but not all of the topics in the module, most noticeably Topic 1 on Airport Operations and Management, and Topic 3 on Airport Access, Landside Operations and Management. I think that based on the module, the 2 topics as listed are the more important and bigger topics as compared to the rest of the topics. The content required for us to research is just nice, not too much and not too little. The other small things that I like about the project is the amount of freedom it provides us, from choosing any airport that we like to work on, and any website creation softwares to create our website. I also like the fact that we are using websites to put out content instead of powerpoints which is what we always do, so this is more unique than the other projects. I think that some aesthetic marks can be given in the marking of this project, as it also shows the creativity of some of the students.