DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

Denver International Airport Case Study Solution

Introduction

Denver International Airport is one of the airports in Denver, Colorado, United States established in the year 1995. It is one of the largest airports in the United States covering an area of 33,531 acres. In the year 1985, the mayor of Denver and Adam County decided to replace the old Stapleton International Airport with Denver International Airport. During the agreement of the project, it was estimated that the cost of completing the project would be around $1.2 million.

The reason for the construction of the new airport was the rapid growth of the airline industry because of which Stapleton International Airport was unable to handle the tariffs. It was estimated that the total number of passengers were expected to increase significantly each year from 1995. The site area selected for the construction of Denver International was in the northeast of Denver. This area was between Denver and Adams County and required the agreement of Denver.

There was also another airport in the southeast of the area by the name of Front Range Airport which primarily dealt in air cargo and air freight and would become one of the competitors of DIA. The new airport would be better from the old airport in terms of operations, noise impacts, terminal layout, facilities, configuration, capability and expansion. The project would be handled by the two companies which are Greiner Engineering and Morrison-Knudsen Engineering. The United Airline and Continental Airline did not support the decision of the construction of anew airline. The United Airline opposed the expansion of Front Range Airport as it would increase its overall costs. However, the construction of Denver International Airport was good for the Continental Airline as it was struggling to survive in the market and it would help to boost its overall ratings.

Problem Statement

The problem in the project was that it was first estimated to be launched in the year 1993 in the month of October. The project costs exceeded to $5 billion from $1 billion due to many alternations and modifications. The launch of Denver International Airport delayed due to the problems in infrastructure, poor weather conditions and human resource. However, the biggest problem which caused long delays for launching the Denver International Airport was the automated baggage system.

Justification of Problem Statement

The DIA decided to design a state of the art automated baggage system in the airport consisting of 100 computers, 56 scanners and around 60,000 bags. However, developing that automated baggage system caused delays in the entire project as new costs were incurring for developing the system and there was software related problems being caused by running the baggage System.

During the launch of the airline people preferred in carrying the bags instead of using the Automated Baggage System. The Automated Baggage System was a completely new system where no suitable person had the experience for guiding the team as even the BAE had no experience regarding the Automated Baggage System. When the system was tested, most of the bags were either stuck or being crushed. The BAE had been given with additional $35 million dollars for modifying the system with the city. However, both the city and BAE blamed each other for the delay as BAE claimed that the modifications and alternations made by the city caused the delay, whereas the city claimed against the BAE for causing delaying in launching the Denver International Airport. The work breakdown structure was poorly developed due to the following reasons:

Poor Project definition since the beginning of project
The modification and alternations also caused delay.
New changes being made on the WBS

There were also other related problems being caused during the launch of Denver International Airport as people were not using the ABS, large queues were forming on the escalators in the main terminal of trains, trains were not frequently running and during the rainy weather, water was pouring from the ceiling of the airport.

Analysis

The analysis of the Denver International Airport is conducted through using SWOT analysis determining the project’s Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

SWOT Analysis

Strength

The strengths of the new project Denver International Airport was that the passengers were estimated to increase which would result in better revenue generation. This airline is one of the largest airports in the United States in terms of the total land. The airport would contain a state of the art of Automated Baggage System that would carry 60,000 baggage per hour with 56 scanners. The new airport would be better with the old airport in terms of operations, noise impacts, terminal layout, facilities, configuration, capability and expansion of the airport.

DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT Harvard Case Solution & Analysis

Weakness

The weakness of the Denver International Airport is that the poor weather conditions such as rainy and winter seasons would reduce the efficiency for the competition of the project. The poor season would also result in reducing its overall revenue and halting its flight operations. The other problem was that the airline was around 17 miles away which caused the employees to drive additional 20 minutes which caused dissatisfaction. There was also the scarcity of applicants which caused a problem for the airline. It had lack of collaboration with its stakeholders such as the United Airlines.................

This is just a sample partial work. Please place the order on the website to get your own originally done case solution.