ASSESSING THE EFFECTS OF GLOBALIZATION AND COVID-19 ON THE PERFORMANCE OF INTERNATIONAL AIR TRANSPORT ACTIVITY (IN CASE OF ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES)

Abstract

Globalization is, at its most literal sense, the process of creating, transforming things or phenomena into global ones. Air industry is playing an important role in this expansion. Air traffic is vulnerable to external factors, such as oil crises, natural disasters, armed conflicts, terrorist attacks, economic recessions and disease outbreaks. The resent pandemic caused by COVID-19 has globally affected air transport mobility as well as the airlines industry in general. The general objective of this study is to examine how globalization and COVID-19 had affected the performance of international air transport activities (in case of Ethiopian Airlines). In this paper both qualitative and quantitative methods were utilized. The qualitative data were collected by using questionnaires which were administered to the management, international and domestic flight customers and non-management staffs of the airlines within the population of above 17000 Ethiopian airlines employees 110 employees were selected by purposive random sampling method. A quantitative data were collected from different official international airlines web sites including Ethiopia airlines official sites, social media platforms and YouTube videos (Interviews of Ethiopian airlines, CEO ) other relevant reports. After examining both the qualitative and quantitative data, the researcher found that, the effect of globalization during early stage of COVID-19, the entire elements of life, and economy, social and political effects has occurred. The findings indicate that the pandemic expose the readiness of nations on their preparedness and readiness strategies for management on uncertainty. All this was the impact that drive international airlines to scramble down under destructive level of success. In general, the research led to the conclusion that Ethiopian government, Ethiopian airlines has shown the world that nothing is going to stop the company from succeeding , the leadership aggressively approaching the pandemic on keeping the company elevated. Ethiopian airlines has been a success story way before the pandemic and still.