Abstract:
Organisations across the aviation sector strive to become more resilient, and
there is a great desire to integrate resilience into the operation. However, there
is no clear definition of resilience, and people in academia and industry have
interpreted the concept differently.
The research aims to integrate different conceptualisations of resilience and
develop a framework that holistically explains how resilience can be developed
in the UK air transportation industry context. The development of the framework
is achieved through an integration of the literature and empirical refinement of the
subsequent preliminary framework.
A systematic, multi-sector and cross-disciplinary literature review was conducted
to determine four main themes of resilience: System Design, System
Preparedness, System Response, and System Changes. A total of 26 high-level
resilience principles were identified in the literature and grouped into different
(sub-)themes, building the foundation for a Preliminary Resilience Framework
(PRF).
The empirical work of the thesis investigated five cases in the UK air
transportation system. The qualitative research aimed to identify empirical
evidence through thematic analysis of how the UK air transportation industry
operationalised the identified high-level principles. The analysis of the cases
found evidence for 19 of the 26 principles. Furthermore, the case study findings
determined ten new connections between the various identified (sub-)themes and
refined the PRF.
The five case study findings were synthesised to develop an Integrated
Conceptual Resilience Framework (ICRF). The ICRF combines findings from all
five case studies and provides a holistic resilience framework, outlining the
principles and features of a resilient UK air transportation system.
