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Fighting business uncertainty with Scenario Planning at Bologna Airport: An antifragile experience in times of COVID-19
Journal of Airport Management,
16
(2),
154-172
(2022)
Abstract
The unprecedented impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our lives during the last 18 months has been evident, as in the aviation sector. The level of uncertainty we all have to face, both at the personal and the managerial level is so high that traditional planning approaches have become useless. We are not in the position to understand or forecast how the future will evolve, because the number of variables is high and the interactions somehow unknown. Under these circumstances, we need to evaluate our business options under alternative ‘futures’ with different strategies to be implemented. This paper describes the approach undertaken by Aeroporto G. Marconi di Bologna to ‘fight business uncertainty’, applying a Scenario Planning approach, in the darkest hours of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords: Bologna Airport; business uncertainty; COVID-19; scenario planning; business strategy; antifragility
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Nazareno Ventola is CEO and Managing Director at Aeroporto Marconi di Bologna. Nazareno joined Aeroporto G. Marconi di Bologna in January 2000 having previous experience in the energy and consultancy industries. In 2002, he became Planning & Control Director, with responsibilities on the corporate planning and management control process, and on economic regulation. In 2011 he was appointed Strategy and Corporate Performance Management Director, focusing on monitoring corporate performance and strategic business development. In 2013 he was appointed Managing Director and in July 2015 CEO, leading Aeroporto G. Marconi di Bologna to a successful landing at the Italian Stock Exchange,‘ Borsa Italiana’, opening the majority of the company’s shareholding to private investors. Since then, he helped the airport through different business phases, from developing a ‘passenger focused’ strategy based on state-of-the-art technologies in order to build a knowledge base aimed at providing better services for the airport’s customers to the recent rollercoaster driven by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the aviation sector. He holds a degree cum laude in chemical engineering from the University of Trieste.
