Communication

Strategy
Assignment: Corporate Communications in Syrian
Airlines
European University

Syrian Airlines has decided that owing to the improving international position, the airline is
going to upgrade its fleet and carry out a “root and branch” restructuring of its corporate
communications, both internally and externally. Using your knowledge of the airline, conduct the
following exercises:
• Complete a SWOT analysis on the airline
• From your environmental scanning and internal analysis.
• Conduct analysis of the main issues and then place the issues in order of priority.
• Identify and write three key communication objectives
• Develop action strategies that enable key communication objectives to be achieved.

By Suzanna 1 Prof. Dr.John

Harfoush Dolton
 Table of Contents

1. Introduction............................................................................................ 3
2. About Syrian Airlines............................................................................. 4
3. Who is Syrian airlines.................................................... ........................ 4
3.1. Syrian Airlines milestones.......................................................... …..4
3.2. State of the Art technology..................................................... ……..5
3.3. The Big Move and accomplishments.......................................... …..6
4. Environmental scanning.......................................................................... 7
4.1. PEST Analysis................................................................................... 7
5. SWOT Analysis...................................................................................... 10
6. Main Objectives and strategies ............................................................. 15
7. Summery...................................................................................... ……..18
8. References.............................................................................................. 19

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1. Introduction:

This assignment is addressed to highlight on one of vital national Syrian

organizations, the flag carrier airline of Syria : Syrian Airlines.
We will review their History, achievements, their implementation of the
latest technology in the past and their golden times when they were one of
the best airlines companies in Middle East…
But this is a history now, it’s nice to be attached to our past and especially if
we used to have great achievements but its much better to remember that we
are living in the present and we need to build the history for our children…
So to give the chance for our children to live the victories of Syria airlines a
lot of changes must be done to remove the dust off this national organization
and restructure the whole management, procedures, communications, and
processes. To have complete new airlines with the old pride and great
experience of the past.
To achieve the previous dream (be careful when we really believe in our
dreams they always come true) ,we need to start from somewhere, a lot of
things must be done, but the most important things is to be organized and to
know exactly what to do, simply to have clear and specific plan .
Our Plan to improve the international position of Syrian airlines is to start
from Internal analyzing ,and complete the SWOT analysis using
environmental scanning techniques, by this we will have good list of
Strength, Weaknesses, opportunities and threads which is good enough to
start with and analyze the airlines positions precisely.
The next step will be identifying the key issues facing the airline and then
classify them into categories.

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Once the above is complete, we can easily conduct analysis of the main
issues and then place the issues in order of priority.
Then Identifying and writing three key communication objectives and finally
Developing action strategies that enable key communication objectives to be
achieved.

2. About Syrian Airlines

2.1 Who is Syrian airlines:

Syrian Airlines is the flag carrier airline of Syria, based in Damascus. It

operates scheduled international services to over 40 destinations in Asia,
Europe and North Africa, as well as domestic services. Its main base is
Damascus International Airport and it’s a member of the Arab Air Carriers
Organization.

2.2 Syrian Airlines milestones:

• In 1946: Syrian Arab was established in autumn 1946, with two

propellers and started to fly between Damascus Aleppo and Der
Alzour Kamishli. The airline expanded during the fifties to include
Beirut, Baghdad, and Jerusalem, then Cairo and Kuwait then Doha , in
addition to flights during hajj.
• In 1952: The airline was provided with three aircrafts Dakota type
DC3 and in 1954 with four aircrafts CC4.
• In 1957 four aircrafts DC6 in the name of United Arab Airline.
• In 1971 two more super caravel were enforced so can expand new
routes towards Jeddah ,Abu dhabi ,Benghazi, Budapest, Moscow.

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• In 1975: all DC6 were withdrawn from operating any route, and the
whole navy operating with jet planes , then a Boeing 727 were leased
from British companies till mid 1976 , three brand new aircrafts were
delivered 727 , and two 747.
• The airliner did change its name from company to institute in
11/11/1975.

2.3 State of the Art technology:

The Syrian Airlines always used to race towards technology at home

obtaining the latest reservation system in 1981 from manual
reservation to Gabriel automated reservation system.
And in what's been done during the year 1979-1980 is building the
infrastructure for computerized system in and the country.
So that was a turning point for the institute it's development and
entering new area in different programs, like the manual search for the
lost and found, the system is called (back track) in 1982 and it
followed another system called ( load star) for automated departure ,
and also for weight and followed by another system in 1985 called
( Bahamas) for managing passengers lost reservation , and timatec for
hotel reservation system once more . and its departure system in 1988-
1989
Also moved to another new system for lost and found called (world
tracer) in 1989 stared implementing total distribution system for travel
agents under the umbrella of Arab union aviation, and started to invest
in Syria in august 1994, also the institute implemented pricing in 1990
and the automated system for printing tickets in June1992.

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2.4The Big Move and accomplishments:

• The unique movement of the company was when they bought the
huge central computer in 1996. In addition to a lot of computerized
programs in different area of the ( company) , filling , salaries,
internet , intranet , human resources.
• The airline expanded horizontally and vertically, it did increase some
station according to its demand, so it reaches a number more than
44stations in Asia , Europe, and Africa.
• Syrian airlines considered Aleppo the second Syrian window for the
world, so it launched a new international, for Syrian and other airlines
to fly all destinations since early fifties, where Regular international
flights took place to Beirut Mosel Amman Kuwait , Alexandria ,
during 1958-1959.
• A passenger terminal has been built to absorb the period of the current
economic flourish that Syria have reached , and now weekly flights
departing from Aleppo airport is 85 , 24 those flights continue towards
Europe .

3. Environmental Scanning

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Strategic Planning for the future of any organization requires that the people
involved have a broad and deep understanding of their current environment.
Conducting an environmental scan is the most commonly used process that
creates the level of understanding needed for the strategic plan to be
successful. An environmental scan helps develop a common perception;
identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats; and draws on
both internal and external information.

This information can be used to help

1) Provide a base, from which progress can be measured,

2) gather consensus about where the organization is going,

3) Ensure effective use of an organization’s resources.

Conducting an environmental scan involves gathering pieces of information

that, together, keep the organization focused on its goals, both short and
long-term.

3.1.PEST Analysis:

PEST analysis stands for "Political, Economic, Social, and Technological

analysis" and describes a framework of macro-environmental factors
used in the environmental scanning component of strategic
management.

1. Political: The Political Situation in Syria is in the best position:

o With Gulf Countries like Qatar the relationship like it was
always great,

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o and with KSA, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon the relationship
became much better than before,
o in addition to excellent relationship with Turkey the major
player in the area,
o not forgetting about the god and strategic friend Iran,
o and very good enhancing relations with Europe like France and
German, the countries that are convinced that Syria is a major
player in the area and the dialogue and conversations must be
opened instead of isolating it.
o The most important that our relations with U.S since the
positions toward Syria has changed a lot especially after Barak
Obama became a president, intensive diplomatic visits between
the countries, new ambassador with come from US to
Damascus the thing that was on hold for years, and many
sanctions will be removed.
o The withdrawal of US, British and other armies from Iraq and
the rebuilding and reconstructing of Iraq that already started,
the thing that Syria will be one of the major beneficiaries due to
the strategically location and the road network which will
provide the transportation and the airlift between Iraq and many
other countries…
o The Peace negotiation with Israel.

All the factors above and much more are the reasons to think
that this is the best time to change for Syrian airlines , this is the
most suitable period to get the benefits from all the good
relations with developed countries to get benefits from their

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 experiences in the airlines industry, to be ready in hosting all
the huge amount of Turkish investors who are coming hundreds
of them monthly, the air bridge for all investments in Iraq, all
the tourists who are looking at Syria on the map and thinking
it’s the time to visit this great country…

2. Economic: the Economic situation in the whole world is in very bad

conditions, after the economic crises the recession is everywhere in
US, Europe, some Gulf and Arabic countries. Although Syria in much
better positions than other countries but Syria is not an island and it
has been affected indirectly with the recession that is all around the
world.
3. Technological: The technology is in continues developing and
enhancement, it’s very hard to stay always up to dated
technologically and specially in very high and expensive systems like
airline, huge amount of money must be invested to have good
technology in this field, but the competition doesn’t give a break , the
airlines companies are racing to get it latest technology and to
announce new services, and all this needs very big budget, and most
of the time American technology is used which has a lot of restrictions
in Syria because of economic and political sanctions.
4. Environmental: Many environmental problems facing airlines
industries everywhere, such as :
o The problems with global warming,
o in addition to the huge usage of the petroleum by the airlines,

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 o and the oil decrease problem in the world that many researched
are predicting and talking about the imminent ending of the oil
specially from gulf savings.
o Fatality accidents that are happening from time to time and
killing tens of passengers…

May at the same time all the previous factors didn’t prevent people
from using airplanes, at the opposite they are using this transport more
and more every day because it’s the fastest and most comfortable and
reliable way to connect continents, countries, people, business, and
transfer and ship everything from envelop to huge containers…
Definitely the future is for airlines, even between cities people prefer
to take a plane rather than to driver 4-5 hours, so the investment in
this field is not a waste of money may very smart predict for the
future…

4. SWOT Analysis:

Applying SWOT Analysis is very important to examine any organization

situation, to recognize the gap between strengths, weaknesses, threads and
opportunities in the following areas:

Strength:

• The traditional logo (Syrian Airline mean safety), that gives very good
impression to the passengers.
• The Professional and very high skilled Syrian Pilot that proved that
Syria airlines one of the safest in the world.

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• The good reputation of Syria airlines that have had no fatalities from
an air crash between 1970 and 2009.
• Friendly Customer service but not professional.
• The meal always very fresh and high quality.
• Relatively cheap ticket cost.
• The airline opened offices all over the country to offer its services to
the public.
• Syrian Arab Airline Transfer all pilgrims from most cities within
Syria to Jeddah, and from most European cities and from North Africa
this year 2005 pilgrims were transferred to Madina for first time.
• Syrian Arab Airline has a big navy of the latest equipment for ground
aviation service , it serve more than 35 international airlines in
Damascus , and 14 in Aleppo, it Provides ground movement ,
equipment for all planes for Arabic and foreign airlines working in the
country and flights of Syrian airline and in all domestic airport.
• Huge stuff owned by the institute like: navy to service crew,
engineers, hosts and all coworkers.
• The airline had good experience in providing luxury transportation for
pilgrims to and from all cities.
• The airline has its own catering facilities built in 1979, and has been
renewed recently; it provides more than a million meal annually.
• Regular daily internal flights.

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Weaknesses:

• Not Professional screw stuff, still the personal connections has very
big role in choosing the screw which has direct impact on airlines
image.
• Not following the international rules and standards: ie. you can ignore
wearing the seatbelt, the smoking could be allowed in the kitchen or
the toilets if you have some personal connection with someone from
crew stuff, although they announce that Syrian airlines are non
smoking flight, but many time you can smell very good the smoke
coming from the back of the plane (This happened with me personally
two times in 2009).
• Not punctual most of the time.
• No real compensation once the flight is canceled or the baggage got
damaged.
• Very poor online service:
o Their Servers is down very often.
o Website has a lot of technical and Graphical problems.
o You need to click 3-4 links from the home page to get online
booking which is working for flying to all cities : just when the
destination certain cities you can search or book online.
o Poor cooperation and connection with online booking agencies.
• Since the online service is very poor it doesn’t leave us with many
choices except calling for reservation or going their personally, and
here is other weakness of Syrian airlines ground staff and with the
customer service, by not answering the phone most of the time, or
making you wait very long time before answering your questions, or

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 waiting for the system to be restarted due to huge load of the
applications on old PCs and not efficient Servers.
• Small amount of cargo is allowed.
• No Marketing Campaigns or promotions announce most of
promotions staid in much closed circle just spread between the local
stuff and their connections.
• Not Enough marketing and PR Budget to enhance the image of Syrian
Airlines.
• Management of the Syrian airlines is not efficient with poor
performance, a lot of good regulations and policies are just on paper
with no following for implementation.
• They don’t develop their customer service department, therefore no or
very few services provided when you arrive or depart from the airport.
• No active Tourism departments in the airport in order to increase
tourist groups.
• No powerful cooperation between Syria airlines and the tourist offices
in Syria.
• Frequent flyer program existing but was never implemented, to
encourage the customers to stay loyal to the company.
• Not professional and no experience in transferring tourist groups or
having special offers for tourist from specific countries.

Opportunities
• Huge Demand in the airlines field for National and international
airlines, which is great opportunity to take good positions in the
market especially with the good reputation of Safety and the long
existence in the market.

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• The great opportunity as Syria is very rich in history and heritage in
addition to the Mediterranean Sea that could attract millions of
visitors annually.
• The Good changes in Syrian ministry of tourism that is trying to
restructure and develop many procedures, in addition that the new
minister of tourism trying to cooperate with all other internal and
external organizations to encourage different tourists to visit Syria.
• The very good political connection between Syria and several gulf
countries like Qatar which is ready to invest in many areas in Syrian
Republic and one of them the airlines business in addition to the
enhancing connections with many European countries like France and
Germany and for sure the old loyal friend Russian federation, all this
countries are the leaders in aircraft manufacturing, and Syrian airlines
could get the best benefits out of this.
• The Great development in aircraft technology.
• Financial and Economical stable status of Syrian Government after
economics crises comparing to most other countries in the world
which are suffering from the economic recession.
• After War results of IRAQ: Rebuilding and reconstructing IRAQ will
be mostly through Syria , most of the investment, contributions, will
be from US, and Europe through Syria, and as a result Syrian airport,
since IRAQ airport is damaged and not equipped to host such amount
of visitors.
• Great friendship and business relationship with Turkey, a lot of
investments from Turkish side in Syria, and Turkish airlines has two
daily flights to Damascus and one to Aleppo most of the time they are

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 full, which leaves good opportunity for Syrian airlines to take its place
and play good role.
• Great opportunities to have cooperation and flexible network with
many other international airlines, to offer for the Passenger more and
longer destinations.

Threats

• Global economy recession which have effected directly or indirectly

all the industries in most of the countries.
• Huge and professional competition from other airlines.
• The American Sanctions on Syrian Government.
• The Middle East situation, the hot areas in Iraq, Lebanon and Israel,
and the absence of the peace agreement between Syria and Israel.
• Government Structure and decision making system, that affect all the
organization and one of them Syrian airlines, in addition to the
subjective measuring criteria of organizations performances.
• Constrains on facilitating the investment for foreign companies in this
field.
• A lot of government strict regulations and constrains.
• Petroleum price fluctuations.
5. Main Objectives and strategies

After scanning the environment, performing the SWOT analysis, that

showed a lot of weakness in Syrian airlines, may at the same time huge
opportunities.

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Now we need to know how to use this opportunities to overcome the
threats, minimize the weaknesses, and maximize the strength. If you
think this is easy equation, you could be very wrong, because the fact that
Syrian airlines is completely owned by government is great obstacle by
itself, and this is the case for organization that are owned by governments
over the worlds, that is why most successful vital organizations are
privatized, because the governments they don’t have business minds they
are doing great maybe in politics but not in business, but for sure this not
the case for Syrian airlines which is very unreal solution since the
privatization is not the strategy of our government . For sure this situation
adds more restrictions on decision making, innovation, restructuring and
rebuilding the whole organization the thing that must be done at the first
step. May with all the previous constrains and limitations we could set
the main objectives for Syrian airlines as following:

1. Repair and Fix the existing airplanes, the total number of Syrian
airlines airplanes reached to nineteen but the operating ones just
around four, for sure American sanction is playing big role in this
situation, may this is the best time to get benefits of our enhanced
political situations with Europe and US, if there is no way to fix
some of them, they could sell them and with the same budget buy
few new ones.
2. Eliminate and enhance the huge number of employees and trying
to follow the strategy of quality rather than quantity, at least for the
crew staff that represents the face of Syrian airlines, more
professional training must be applied, and more rules and company
policies must be implemented.

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3. Negotiate some strategic cooperation with other strong
international airlines, like Turkish airlines, in the field of tourism
and business.
4. Focus more and negotiate some special deals, for cargo and
shipments to Iraq, the airport in Kameshli, and Der Alzour is
giving very powerful negotiating point. In addition to some luxury
business class flights for business men to Iraq.
5. Focusing on the PR, and dedicating big amount of money on
marketing and PR campaigns.

At the same time when Syrian airlines will work on its internal
restructures, solving the internal problems, they need to work on
their external image, they need to change the image of not
accurate, with very bad airplane conditions, and not professional
crew stuff.

6. Launching new attractive services:

a. More destinations.
b. Special offers for families.
c. Special offers for tourists.
d. Increasing the baggage limit weight from 20 to 30 Kg.
e. Miles and member ship programs.
f. Professional online booking system.
g. Etc…

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6. Summary:

In this assignment we have addressed Syrian airlines organization, one of

government’s pillars, and the carries of Syrian Flag.

To improve their international position, the airline is going to upgrade its

fleet and carry out a “root and branch” restructuring of its corporate
communications, both internally and externally.

We have performed external environmental scanning analysis PESTL, in

addition to SWOT analysis, to identity the opportunities and strength
they can use to overcome the obstacles and eliminate their weaknesses,
afterword we have identified the main and SMART objectives for Syrian
airlines to start with and how to reach these objectives…

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7. References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Air

http://www.syriaair.com/AboutSAA/AboutSAA.aspx

http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?idr=500&id=674272

http://nzausoceaniatravel.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_worlds_saf
est_airline

http://www.wnrf.org/news/slide1.html

http://www.asuextension.com/ads/environmental_scanning_handb
ook.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_scanning

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PESTLE

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