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Approach and landing phases take less than 4% of total flight time of a typical flight, but 36% of fatal aircraft accidents occur during this phase. Gust disturbances creating uncertainties during this phase are primary contributors to many unstabilized, high and fast approaches leading to catastrophic ending. This study analyses the effects of gust and resulting responses affecting the handling and flying characteristics of an aircraft during landing. A pilot-in-the-loop flight simulation during landing with the effect of gust was developed using Boeing B747-100 aircraft to analyze the problem. Elevator and throttle inputs through a joystick were used as control inputs to allow the pilot-in-the-loop to control the aircraft glide-path and speed during landing. It was found that the aircraft flight path during the descent is not affected, if the frequency of the gust is higher than the natural frequency of the aircraft, but maintaining the flight glide path becomes difficult for lower frequencies. Likewise, the vertical gust has more prominent effect than the horizontal gust. In both cases, the aircraft susceptibility to gust disturbances increases the pilot workload causing more difficulties for a landing.

Since the beginning of globalisation and open sky policies, airlines experience intense competition, and their performance get affected by many external factors in addition to internal issues. Fuel price fluctuation, aircraft maintenance, labour and aircraft technical operations cost are primary factors that significantly drain the budget of an airline while exerting strong impact on its operational performance. However, this study focused on effects of external factors, such as political, economic and legal mandates on an airline performance. Therefore, relationships between these factors and airline operational performance are identified and analysed in this paper. Kenya Airways has been chosen as a representative airline for this study. Nevertheless, examples from other airlines are also included for the analysis. Data for this research were collected though a descriptive survey designed according to a qualitative mixed approach. Consequently, focused interviews and questionnaires were used, and reliability of obtained results was checked using Cronbach’s alpha method. The results indicate strong positive correlations between the external factors and performance of an airline. This study therefore confirms that performance of an airline can be influence by market driven fluctuations or intentionally altered external factors discussed in this project.