Dynamic Strategic Planning
4.6 Summary of Dynamic Strategic Planning
The value of dynamic strategy planning is that it helps planners understand the critical is-sues and prepare good responses for possible futures. Developing strategic thinking is the important ingredient. The mechanical parts of planning identified in the previous section, the analysis of the possible futures and their consequences, are necessary but not sufficient.
This needs emphasis. It is easy for planners to focus on the computer models as they need to consider many issues under various circumstances, to calculate the performance and value of facilities under different loads. However, computer analyses are not sufficient to develop a good plan; they do not substitute for strategic thinking.
Strategic thinking has two elements. The first is a critical assessment of the competitive situation, the SWOT analysis. This is comparable to the inventory of current conditions part of the master planning process. The second is a creative process of identifying good responses to the prospective opportunities and threats.
In developing their strategic thinking, planners first need to go through a SWOT analys-is. Specifically, they need to identify the following:
• Strengths of the existing site or airport, the characteristics that give it advantages over other sites or competitive airports—this may include a site central to an avi-ation network that favors transfer traffic, for instance
• Weaknesses of the facility, those that may limit its growth or opportunities—these might include the weakness of the local airline that might merge with another airline that focuses traffic elsewhere, or physical limitations of the site
• Opportunities for the region, which enhance its future prospects—this might be an expanding economic base that will lead to greater air travel and cargo
• Threats to the airport and region, from competitive airlines, airports, or other factors Whereas it is easy to specify a way to inventory the situation, there is no checklist for creative thinking about strategic solutions. Good strategic thinking, like good chess play-ing, comes from observing examples and practice. Professional, experienced leaders in air-port planning and development should be able to think through the possibilities and arrive at good ideas, provided they allow themselves the time and devote careful thought to this issue. By way of illustration, Example 4.2 describes the application of dynamic strategic planning to the development of the passenger buildings for Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).
Example 4.2 The original master plan for KLIA called for a main passenger building to serve domestic traffic, and satellite buildings for international traffic. It designed each terminal to fit the traffic forecast for its intended traffic.
The dynamic strategic plan revisited this master plan. It led to a strategy designed to strengthen the competitive position of the airport and its airlines. The SWOT analysis led to these observations:
• Strengths: The new airport would have enormous capacity and should be attractive for hub operations by a major airline.
• Weaknesses: The original design split the domestic and international operations. This is inefficient for any airline serving connecting traffic. Moreover, the split between international and domestic facilit-ies lacked flexibility to deal easily with major shifts in the future level of domestic traffic, which was highly uncertain given the possibility that the Southeast Asian countries might form a common mar-ket.
• Opportunities: To become a leading aviation hub for Southeast Asia, given the capacity and low cost of operation due to inexpensive land.
• Threats: Competition from Singapore and Bangkok, both of which are strong aviation hubs served by excellent airlines.
Taken together, the SWOT analysis emphasized the opportunities for KLIA to become a major regional hub—if the design team configured the airport to provide integrated operations for the major carrier and achieve low costs.
In retrospect, the SWOT analysis was remarkably prescient. As of 2012, KLIA had become a major international hub for AirAsia, a rapidly expanding low-cost carrier.
Exercises
4.1. Look up previous forecasts for your local (or some other) airport. Compare these with the actual results. Calculate the deviations between forecast and reality, in terms of the per-cent of what actually occurred. To the extent possible, estimate how this perper-cent error in-creases for longer-range forecasts.
4.2. Obtain previous master plans for an airport. Compare these with what actually has been constructed. To what extent has the airport invested in facilities that were not part of the original plan? Not invested in facilities that were in the plan?
4.3. Start by doing a SWOT analysis for an airport of interest. Then discuss: Which of the issues can the airport operators influence through their designs and developments? What kind of developments might position this airport to respond most effectively?
4.4. For the same airport as in Exercise 4.3, think about what elements of the future traffic might be most uncertain. What could the airport operators do to give themselves flexibility so that they could adjust their future developments to deal effectively and efficiency with these different scenarios?
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1This discussion on the development of second airports as part of a system does not mention the many projects planners saw as replacement airports, such as those at Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston in the United States, or at Milan and Osaka.
In those cases, the planners intended to close the older airports to commercial traffic yet the older facilities remained act-ive. Although the airport developers in effect created multi-airport systems in those cases, that was not their intent.