Influence of Covid-19 pandemic to team leading in airline industry customer service

Abstract

Covid-19 pandemic has influenced heavily to airline industry as scheduled passenger traffic has reduced 60 % during Covid-19 pandemic. Objective of this study is to find out what actions the ground service operators needed to do during pandemic and how these actions have influenced team leaders coping and team leading skills. The topic of this thesis is current due pandemic has lasted over two years at the time of writing this thesis. Due to a long-lasting pandemic, it is important to study team leaders coping and well-being at work. Qualitative research method was used to implement this case study and semi- structured interviews were executed to collect the needed data. The interviews were implemented between March 2022 and April 2022. The theoretical part of the thesis focuses first on explaining the pandemic and its influence on airline industry. Second theory part discusses about crisis management. The third part focuses on work related stress. Result part of this thesis presents findings according to the study and discusses the results with theoretical findings. Conclusions summarizes the study. As an additional outcome of the thesis a room board, how to prepare for possible next pandemic, is attached as an appendix. The main results of this study were first to find out that companies in airline industry customer service needed to do several changes and actions due pandemic. Actions and changes covered lay-offs and/or terminations due decreased number of operating flights, work environment changes as remote working and protection measures and work tasks has changed and reorganized. Second main result was to find out that the actions made have influenced team leaders work in changes of negative work-life balance, increased amount of work, more burdensome work tasks and due those actions stress symptoms have been experienced more than before the Covid-19 pandemic. Third main result was to find out that the changes and actions made during pandemic has changed the team leading due moving and adapting to remote working mode, communication has increased, changed more written and informal and that team leader’s own well-being at work has worsen and influenced coping. The study concludes that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused a lot of challenges for team leaders coping, and companies should remember to support them.