Social Factors Affecting Qantas

International and domestic aviation industries exhibit large changes in political environments, affecting mannerisms of customer travel (asse.org, 2017). Aviation bodies, including International Air Transport Association (IATA , 2017), regulating international air transport, and Civil Aviation Authority (CASA, 2017), regulating Australian air services, have authority in ensuring execution of the correct practices and procedures. The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC, 2017), ensures government regulations, trade agreements, and taxation laws are executed. International political trade relationships, affect passenger numbers travelling between countries, and political instability affects Qantas revenues (Kaivanto & Zhang, 2017).

These include government fuel subsidies, stringent emission standards, and more.
ECONOMIC
Australian and Global economies significantly influence levels of Qantas performances. Currency inflation and unstable economies affect Qantas financially and consequently the annual revenues. Economies have an influence on the air travel industry, and severely affect Qantas revenues by the fluctuation of demands in air transport services. Qantas monitors, routes towards loss making, and utilises strategies to mitigate the influence from adverse economic environments. Qantas established and launched a Qfuture business transformation program in 2009, optimising the engineering, supply chain, aircraft utilisation, scheduling, and developed and leveraged alliances for improvement of the airline’s market position. The program aims at equipping Qantas for sustainable growth, in an increasingly competitive operating environment (Qantas Airways Limited, 2010).

SOCIAL
Environmental performances have high social impacts on Qantas.

Considering environmental issues have high social impact, raising societal awareness and posing great challenge to the airline industry. Having a globally known high quality brand, affects customer travel behaviour. Social trends affect purchases, in which customers accept economy cost air travel services at a higher level (Freed, 2014), and reduce travel with Qantas in premium air travel services. Qantas has a higher level of social preferences, by greater customer service, which essentially contributes to customer brand loyalty.
TECHNOLOGY
Qantas associates the pioneering of innovative technology in operations, aircraft and services. Qantas invests in technology, for greater customer experiences and reducing cost of service distribution. Qantas technologies include the airline ticket booking process, using online reservation systems. Qantas encourages forward thinking from employees and fosters a corporate culture to encourage diversity, inclusion and innovation for application in the workplace. Qantas are more agile, having accelerated the use of adopting new technologies, digital platforms and analytical data (Joyce,

2016).

ENVIRONMENTAL
Highly affecting Qantas is the environmental performances of the airline.

High concerns over the airlines consideration towards environmental issues, including carbon emissions (Lee, Wilson, Pasurka, Fujii, & Managi, 2017), have risen in customer awareness, and poses challenging to the company. Qantas undertakes initiatives to reduce carbon emissions, working closely with company experts, to evaluate fuel use, and implement innovative ideas with positive environment benefits. Over 95% of Qantas emissions, are directly from jet fuel, and to counter the reduction of fuel usage, is a key priority to Qantas. Qantas targets to improve fuel efficiency of aircraft by 2020, with reductions of 1.5% per year. Qantas demonstrates initiative thinking, with exploring renewable energy methods including electric ground service vehicles, biofuel, and devotes to reducing fuel consumption (Qantas Airways Limited ,

2017).

LEGAL
Qantas considers legal elements of business operations, as highly important aspects to affect the business performance, and require formally maintaining for successful business operations. Qantas follows health and safety guidelines (Qantas Airways Limited, 2017), government laws and regulations, with priority for all customers and employees. Aviation safety makes the legal environment, stringent, and international air transport requires abiding to international laws. Qantas ensures full commitment towards law, adhering practices, in all business operations, and for all employees to adhere to Australian laws and regulations.