The purpose of this project is to manage the perception of airport passengers about the waiting time and to understand the impact of their perceptions on service evaluation and customer satisfaction.

The customer perception management project charter is prepared to provide the decision maker an opportunity to evaluate the project for its viability and approve the funds needed for its execution. This document contains the details of the need for the project, its scope, justification, and resource requirements. This charter has been prepared by the project management and would be reviewed and approved by the Project Sponsor who is the CFO of Aotearoa Airlines.

The charter contains the overview of the project and other details needed for the project sponsor to take decision on its acceptance including budget estimates, roles and responsibilities, business justification, risk management strategy, and stakeholder management.

Project Overview

This project charter would be made for the 18 months in which perception of customers would be managed and the impact of perception would be explored. As per the passengers, the waiting time is long and the project aims to reduce this such that passengers do not feel like waiting longer. A number of different strategies can be used for this including increase of occupied time to reduce unoccupied time by placing arrival gates away from incoming planes so that customers would be walking more instead of waiting. The airlines can add check-in options such as internet check-in and kiosk check-in allowing them to come a little later at the airport so that their waiting time can be reduced. For studying the impact of perception about waiting time on the customer satisfaction and service evaluation, SERVQUAL analysis would be done on the data collected through survey using questionnaire containing questions on demographics, expectations, perceived time, service quality perception, and satisfaction. The impact of perception would be studied in two phases including the initial phase of the project and the phase after implementation of perception management strategies (Lindberg, 2013).

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Justification

Business Need

Aotearoa Airlines operates flights over New Zealand, Australia, and Pacific Islands. Its fleets include Aerospatiale ATR72, Bombardier Q300, Airbus A320, and Beechcraft King Airs. The Bombardiers in the fleet are outdated and thus, are to be replaced for which the order has been placed. However, this would take time because of delivery delay which would increase the waiting time for the passengers. This could take 18 months and till that time, the company needs to take actions for managing perceptions of consumers about the waiting time. It also needs to understand how the perception would affect the customer satisfaction and product evaluation in customers about the Airlines. The perception of customers has to managed till the new fleet is ready which is 18 months.

Public Health and Business Impact

The project involves collection of data from the customers which would make them feel involved in the process which can be a positive engagement for the consumers. To the business, it will give insights into how consumer perceptions are shaped. With implementation of the perception management strategies, the company would be able to reduce the waiting time as perceived by customers which would increase their satisfaction. The survey data analysis would reveal the level of improvement experienced.

Scope

Objectives

The objectives of the customer perception management project at the airport about waiting time for flights are:

· Reduction of the actual waiting time for the customers are the airport through implementation of new strategies

· Understanding the impact of perceived waiting time in customers on their perception about service quality and satisfaction

· Exploring the changes in the impact of customer perception on service quality and satisfaction after implementation of new strategies

High-Level Requirements

The high-level requirements of the project are listed in the table below

Sr. No.	Requirement Description
1	Reduction of waiting time of customers at the airport
2	Conducting study on customers to study the impact of their perception about waiting time on perceived quality and satisfaction

Major Deliverables

The project deliverables include the execution of the strategy for reduction of the waiting time at the airport, addition of the check-in options allowing customers to check-in before boarding, and performing SERVQUAL analysis to understand the impact of the perception about time in customers on their perception about quality of airport services and their level of satisfaction.

The major deliverables of the project would be

Major Deliverable	Deliverable Description
Reducing unoccupied time	The distance between arrival gates and the planes would be increased so that customers spend more time walking than waiting
Check-in options	Check-in options like internet and kiosks would be added allowing customers to arrive later than in the manual process of counter-based check-in
SERVQUAL Analysis	Survey on consumers to understand their perceived waiting time and the impact of same on service quality and customer satisfaction (Zwikael & Unger-Aviram, 2010).

Boundaries

Following deliverables would be in the project scope:

● reduction of waiting time of consumers by increasing distance between arrival gate and flights

● reduction of waiting time of consumers by giving them extra check-in options like through internet and kiosks so that their reporting time could be later

● Collection of data on customer perception through surveys and interviews

● SERVQUAL analysis of the data collected to assess the impact of customer perception on service quality and customer perception

Following items would be beyond the scope of the project –

● Management of kiosks and internet check-in

● Training of the employees and customers on the developed software to be used for check-in

Duration

Timeline

The project would be executed for the period of 12 months in which 3 months would be needed for changing the airport internal management to enable distance between the arrival gate and the flight area. In the next two months, the software modules would be developed for the company portal to add internet-based check-in. Another 2 months would also be taken to procure the kiosks for the installation of check-in facility through it at the airport for which the company would publish requirement and receive proposals from vendors.

Project Milestones

The project would be completed in 18 months and assuming that it would begin from 1st Jan 2019, the project would be completed by 30th June 2020. The table below sets the milestones for each major deliverable of the project

Deliverables	Milestones
Change in Airport structure to increase distance between arrival area and flight area	31st March 2019
Conduct survey on customers at the airport	30th May 2019
Development of the software module for adding internet-based check-in	31st July 2019
Conduct interviews with customers to understand their concerns with	30th Sept 2019
Procurement of Kiosks for check-in at the airport	30th Nov 2019
SERVQUAL Analysis	31st Dec 2019

Budget Estimate

Funding Source

The funds would be needed for procurement and installation of kiosks, rearrangement at the airport, development of online module for check-in and conducting research as well as performing SERVQUAL analysis. The funds for these developments would be provided by the Airport Fund Managers who would be disbursing money upon approval from the authority within the organization.

Estimate

The project is expected to be completed at the total cost of $400,000 and the project manager would keep a contingency budget of $40,000 to take care of inevitable emergency situations. This fund would only get utilized when the project crosses the budget limits.

High-Level Alternatives Analysis

The alternative to the current development project is no changes to be made in the organization and no surveying or interviewing of the customers at the airport. The first alternative would result into increase in dissatisfaction in customers who would be faced with longer waiting times which could affect their perceptions about the quality of airlines and reduce levels of satisfaction. Thus, it would not be a feasible option to take. The second alternative if to not invest into data collection and SERVQUAL analysis. While this measure would save money for the company but it would not give the company information on whether the implementation of perception management strategies is working in the case of customers. Moreover, with the lack of data, the company cannot truly identify the pain points of the customers that could help them manage the perception well (Hornstein, 2015).

Assumptions, Constraints and Risks

Assumptions

This project would be successfully delivered based on certain assumptions and these include:

1. The company would approve the required funds for the execution of the project

2. The project team has sufficient knowledge and experience needed to execute the project

3. The budget cost of the project is well within the budget of the company set for development

Constraints

The project also has certain constraints such as

The project needs to be completed on time as any delays would cause inconvenience to customers which would not be good for the company

The installation of Kiosks and Internet based check-in have to be completed within the budget (Eriksson, Lilliesköld, Jonsson & Novosel, 2002).
The project has limited resources to work with and thus, all the project team members need to be retained and new hiring can be done only when either of them leave the project

Risks

The project is likely to face certain risks for which the response strategies can be defined. These responses can be avoidance of the risk, acceptance of the risk, transfer to another party or mitigation based on the level of severity of the risk and its impacts on the project. The project manager would be taking steps to avoid risks identified and if they could not be avoided, the manager would delegate the responsibility of mitigation to the concerned department.

The table below identifies certain risks and defines the response strategy for the same:

Risk	Response strategy
Delivery delays	Transfer: If the delays are in the supply of kiosk or the internet-based module for check-in, the mistake would of the suppliers a developer and thus, they could be charged for the losses incurred by the company due to these delays.
Cost overrun	Avoid: The project would be monitored throughout against the plan with costs measured such that increase in costs can be controlled and measures are taken to ensure that the project does not exceed the budget (Creedy, Skitmore & Wong, 2010).
Bugs in software	Avoid: The software needs to be tested before it is launched such that ay bugs can be identified and eliminated before final software is launched.
Lack of resources	Mitigate: If the resources leave the project in between, the work can be redistributed to existing resources and new resources can be hired (Schoonwinkel, 2016).
Lack of acceptance in customers	Avoid: The customer feedback needs to be taken while defining strategies for perception management such that they accept the outcome once the project is executed without resistance (Legris & Collerette, 2006).

Project Organization

Roles and Responsibilities

The key professionals who would be working on the project would include the project sponsor, project manager, software developer, procurement officer, and airport manager. The responsibilities of each of these internal stakeholders are presented in the table below

Project Role	Project Responsibilities
Project Sponsor	Project sponsor would be approving the funds needed for the project after reviewing the project charter. His responsibilities would include reviewing of project cost and deliverable to check the viability of the project and based on it decide the elements of the project to be retained.
Project Manager	Project manager would be responsible for managing different phases of the project including initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, control, and closure, managing the human resources, and project delivery (Keegan & Den Hartog, 2004).
Airport Manager	Airport manager would be taking care of the airport activities including rearranging of facilities and installation of kiosks (Wikina, 2008)
Procurement Officer	Procurement officer would take care of the bids and proposals of the vendors for development of software and purchase of kiosks, as well as would select and have contractual arrangements with them
Developers	Developers would be responsible for the development of software modules for the internet-based check-in
Researcher	The researcher would be preparing questionnaire for interviews and survey to collect data for SERVQUAL analysis and would be performing analysis of the data to understand the impact of customer perception on service quality and satisfaction

Stakeholders (Internal and External)

The project would have internal stakeholders from within the Airport Organization and external stakeholders who could be influencing the project. Internal stakeholders of the project include:

Project Sponsor: The sponsor would be reviewing charter and approving budget. He needs to know that the project is viable and beneficial to the company to be able to support it. The project manager would submit the project charter to the sponsor to get his buy-in and approval.

Staff: The airport staff would be required to cooperate in the development activities for which they need to be informed, consulted and involved in the project activities that need work inside the airport. The staff would be involved on the project wherever needed including activities like managing customer perception, participating in the surveys, and assisting in rearrangements.

Airport manager: Airport manager would be taking care of project execution within the airport premise. Airport manager needs to be consulted and kept informed about all the activities of the project (Ponnappa, 2014).

External stakeholders of the project include:

Customers: Customers of the airport would be using the services and are the primary target to get acceptance and thus, they would be involved by the management through surveys and interviews. The customers are most crucial to the project as their views would shape the success of the project.

Suppliers: Vendors and suppliers would be delivering kiosks for which they have to be informed clearly about the needed specifications. They would be participating in the project through the bidding process (Gilbertson-White et al., 2018).

Project Charter approval

This project charter is approved by the authorities assigned as mentioned below from the Airport and project organization.

Signature:		Date:
Print Name:
Title:
Role:

Signature:		Date:
Print Name:
Title:
Role:

References

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Eriksson, M., Lilliesköld, J., Jonsson, N., & Novosel, D. (2002). How to Manage Complex, Multinational R&D Projects Successfully. Engineering Management Journal, 14(2), 53-60. doi: 10.1080/10429247.2002.11415163
Gilbertson-White, S., Yeung, C., Saeidzadeh, S., Tykol, H., Vikas, P., & Cannon, A. (2018). Engaging Stakeholders in the Development of an eHealth Intervention for Cancer Symptom Management for Rural Residents. The Journal Of Rural Health. doi: 10.1111/jrh.12297
Hornstein, H. (2015). The integration of project management and organizational change management is now a necessity. International Journal Of Project Management, 33(2), 291-298. doi: 10.1016/j.ijproman.2014.08.005
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Ponnappa, G. (2014). Project Stakeholder Management. Project Management Journal, 45(2), e3-e3. doi: 10.1002/pmj.21400
Schoonwinkel, S. (2016). A risk and cost management analysis for changes during the construction phase of a project. Journal Of The South African Institution Of Civil Engineering, 58(4), 21-28. doi: 10.17159/2309-8775/2016/v58n4a3
Wikina, S. (2008). Effective performance improvement and management strategies for the information technology industry. Performance Improvement, 47(9), 19-25. doi: 10.1002/pfi.20030
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