Introduction

The European Airlines (in several ways) are facing challenges such as privatization,
consolidation, fuel prices and more importantly the effects of COVID-19.

McKinsey's 7S Model can be harnessed in a change management strategy as highlighted below,

with all elements interrelated.

Strategy
This is the organization's plan for building and maintaining a competitive advantage over its
competitors (Aroma & Vu, 2019). For example, Ryanair (in 2019) decided to change their strategy
by moving to a group structure to become Ryanair Holdings PLC (with four airline subsidiaries)
(CAPA, 2019). European Airlines basically run a strategy of market penetration (Wever, 2016);
they try to continuously expand their flight routes, making their services accessible to the
generality of the potential customers while increasing their flight locations till their services are
almost inevitable for customers.
For the European Airlines industry a creation of alliances and code sharing as this can improve
airlines to satisfy customer demands for global connectivity (Sargeant, 2015) code sharing (despite
limiting cost synergies) can give the European airlines opportunities to know more of each other.
This can serve as a way for strategic investment, merger or acquisition.
Part of the airlines’ strategy is to invest on technological improvement tools that makes their
operation relatively safer and faster than that of the competitors; most invested on installing high
quality ground handling management services with well-trained professionals that reduces
customers waiting time thereby building customer satisfaction (O’Connell & Williams, 2016).
European Airlines within the highly competitive routes sometimes strategize competitive edge by
using price promotion and low fare charges; a case study is Ryanair that slashed its fares to
compete with Lufthansa and British Airways (Ahmed et al., 2019).
British Airways, on the other hand pursues the business strategy of service differentiation.
Specifically, the airline differentiates its services via an extensive reliance on digitalization and
information technology and a high level of customization of service provision (Karami, 2017). An

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aggressive international market expansion is another important element of British Airways
business strategy and in 2016 alone; the airline company introduced more than a dozen new routes
(Airways, 2017).

Structure
This shows the organizational chart of a company and is also one of the most visible and easily
to change elements of the model. Most airlines have a hierarchy structure with large cost carriers
with group structures e.g. IAG, Lufthansa Group and Air France-KLM (CAPA, 2019). Further
example, British Airways (an IAG subsidiary) reorganized their top management team with nine
directorate heads led by the Chief Executive. The British Airways has two groups, the
management board (responsible for the strategic direction and vision of the company) and the
Customer and Operations executive (responsible for customer service, operational performance
and safety standards). This (restructuring) has made BA more efficient as it helped in clarifying
individual and collective roles along with responsibilities. British Airways now publishes (on
their intranet) all of their top managers account abilities (British Airways, 2009).

Style
Is the way a company is managed by its top-level management. It can also be described as the
company's leader’s management style. Airlines will have to implement leadership styles that will
enhance their company's competitive advantage as each airline has different goals. For example,
Ryanair has a autocratic leadership style which has been effective for them since their leaders
goal is to reduce cost (Nortilli and Wong, 2014). However, this style limits creativity, motivation
and commitment from subordinates. Ryanair will need to implement a different style to
overcome these limitations in order to compete with their rivals.

Skills
This looks at the abilities that the company's staff perform well. The European Airlines will need
to research on what skills will be needed to reinforce new strategy or structure to gain
competitive advantage. For example in addition to their employees having access to online
learning EasyJet (in 2019) introduced 'My Journey' a support tool for performance and personal

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development reviews in the management and administrative community. Their managers are also
given resources( such as management courses on recognizing and valuing different ce) and
advice to help the support the development of their teams. Also in 2019 Easyjet had a
development programme for women where middle managers took residential courses
(www.corporate.easyjet.com).

Staff
Staff refers to the employees and their general capabilities (Guo & Gong, 2018). It is concerned
with what type and how many employees an organization will need and how they will be recruited,
trained, motivated and rewarded. It is regarded as a soft element by McKinsey (Njeru & Kariuki,
2019) because it is harder to describe and less tangible when being attempted to be measured.
However, it is more influenced by a company culture (Shaqrah, 2018).
For European airlines, technology has reduced the need for workers; few employees are needed
for most European airline organizations. The employees are motivated by successful business
growth and rewarded with one of the best industry remunerations to influence performance
(Malivan & Thanakunwutthirot, 2019). The airlines have increasing market value which reflects
in their staff expectations; the staff requirements keep increasing with improvement in the general
airline industry (Egli, 2018).
As part of its drive to ensure that customers are always satisfied and treated well, the staffs of
Virgin Atlantic are trained to be customer-friendly with the right attitude (Baxter, 2019). They are
positioned to automatically help travelers during flights and assist when customers have queries.

Systems
This refers to the daily activities and procedures that staffs use to get the work done (Liu, 2020).
They reveal business’ daily activities and how decisions are made. They are regarded as part of
the hard elements as they are relatively easy to identify while management can influence them
directly.
Within the European airline industry, the system is formalized with few informal systems to
manage relationships between agents and the airlines. The systems are mainly concerned with
customer support and order processing (Button, 2017). There is adequate strategic planning to help
the airlines maintain competitive advantage over time, the personnel management is formalized

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while new business generation systems are not commonplace; the industry is heavily regimented
and tend not to be too flexible.
Apart from the standard set of organizational systems such as employee recruitment and selection
system, performance appraisals system, quality control system, complaint handling system and
others, British Airways also maintains a number of industry-specific systems. These include, but
not limited to passenger check-in system, baggage handling system, in-flight entertainment system
and others (Airways, 2017).

Shared values:
This involves the guiding concepts and vision underlying the desired corporate destiny of an
organization. The European airline industry is continuously faced with change. To manage this
change, the following relevant questions are to be asked: Is the culture helpful to progressive
improvements? Do these values in tandem with competitive pressure and strategy? What are the
corporate values of the organisation? (Pothiyadath, R. and Wesley, J. R., 2014).

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