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DECEMBER 2017 businesstraveller.comT
his year has been a bumper one
for the tabloid media and its
reporting on airlines. If some of
the pieces, columns and articles
aretobebelieved,anumber
of airlines have sowed the seeds of their
own destruction through arrogance, hubris,
incompetence (you can supply your own
terms) and now, like all the best tragedies,
their end is nigh. But is this commentary
fair or even accurate? Do airlines deserve the
heavy criticism they receive when they screw
up, and does it point to the sort of systemic
failure suggested?
There have been many examples in the
past 12 months, but focusing on three, we
can see they are all very different incidents
with different effects and different reasons
for the failure.
First, we saw a customer being dragged
from a United f light. The footage was
terrible, and it was followed by a response
from company management that appeared to
rubsaltinthewounds.Therootcauseseems
to have been overbooking , though various
explanations were put forward. Although
overbooking might seem outrageous, nearly
all airlines do it, and without it there would
be fewer seats available. It’s a complex
business, but really this was an incident that
wasturnedintoaPRdisaster.Notably,it
hasn’t changed the policy on overbooking ,
though you may be offered considerably
more money for the inconvenience in future.
Then there was the network meltdown
of British Airways on a busy May holiday
weekend. The route cause seems to have
been a contractor switching off a key system
which set off a chain of events that almostDaily operations
are so complex,
it’s a marvel that
so much goes so
right so oftenILLUSTRATION: BENJAMIN SOUTHANOPINION
Is media
coverage of airline
challenges justified?
John Strickland suggests the preoccupation with airline
failures has become more blood sport than critical analysisJOHN STRICKLAND
DIRECTOR OF JLS CONSULTINGbrought the airline to its knees. Again, this
was seen as disastrous for BA and evidence
that cost-cutting had gone too far. Media
linkedittotheintroductionof“Buyon
Board” on its short-haul economy f lights,
despite there being no link at all. In fact,
BA’s problems exposed the real difficulty of
how to make decisions and communicate
when almost all IT systems on which this
was dependent, were down. They didn’t do
agreatjob,anditcostthemtensofmillions
of pounds, but lessons will be learned and
processes changed. IT
failures have happened to
many businesses, and will
continue to do so. Airlines
aren’t unique in this.
Finally, Ryanair’s
recent debacle of
flight cancellations
due to a self-inf licted
rostering/pilot leave
mess-up provided many column inches
for the airline’s detractors. It was a
substantial own goal, but
CEO Michael O’Leary was
quickly out there admitting
“mea culpa”. Yet though it
affected many hundreds of
thousands of passengers, it
was, in fact, a drop in the ocean. Ryanair
has over 400 aircraft and approaching 130
million annual passengers. It also (normally)
has very high levels of punctuality
and consistently exceptional financial
performance. O’Leary is no fool, and knows
he has to fix this quickly and restore the
faith. A big challenge, not least in terms
of pilot relations, but he’s determined andRyanair has the financial muscle and market
presence to put this behind it.
So what can we conclude? Are airlines
contemptuous of their passengers? Do
they cut costs to the point they have IT
meltdowns but carry on regardless? Do they
treat their staff so badly they refuse to come
to work? You will read something along
these lines every day, but the truth is far more
complex. Airlines don’t deliberately seek to
provoke hard-won customers (or staff ) and
they don’t enjoy media ridicule, but while
inconvenienced passengers
might enjoy reading
journalists savage their airline
of choice for its failures, the
nextweekormonththeywill
probably be back f lying with
one or another of them.
Daily airline operations
aresocomplex,andthe
various considerations so
multiple, that with such a
juggle it’s still a marvel that
so much of it goes so right so
often every day. To state the
obvious isn’t to take it for granted,
but using airlines we get to where
we want to, safely, and most of the time
we get there on time with our luggage as
well. We hear again and again that there
must be “no excuses”... well perhaps not.
But there are explanations, and from those,
lessons will be learned, and would be even
without the sort of reporting of the last
year. Let’s agree then, there should be no
repeats, but to paraphrase Mark Twain, the
glib predictions of the demise of these fine
companies are greatly exaggerated!