"Stop the Machine"
By: Perry Flint
Air Transport World
April, 2005
P. 5
"Last December, US Airways and Comair each suffered near simultaneous operation meltdowns over the Christmas holiday period, resulting in the cancellation of many hundreds of flights and the inconveniencing of nearly three quarters of a million passengers.
But there the similarity ends. Comair's problems were owing to an unfortunate confluence of two of commercial aviation's biggest dragons: Weather and computer problems. A severe ice storm at its Cincinnati hub literally froze aircraft to the tarmac. Then as Comair was recovering, its flightcrew scheduling system shut down due to a software glitch that arguably was unforeseeable by the airline.
At US Airways, the problems largely were manmade, as is clear in the detailed report commissioned by US Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta following both events. Keenly aware of personnel shortages amoung the flight attendant and ramp agent work groups, US Airways officials knew they were rolling the dice well before piles of unchecked luggage started reaching the ceiling in Philadelphia. To have flown the published schedule would have required near-perfect weather and operation conditions and better-than-average attendance from a worn down, depleted and resentful staff that was (and still is) living through a second bankruptcy reorganization. As it was, a bit of typical East Coast weather was all it took to set back the company's marketing efforts by a year or so. Leaders of the airline deserve no credit for the fact that as the situation unfolded, their first reaction was to blame union sickouts when no doubt they had been warned by lower downs in the management food chain that the system was held together with duct tape. Yet their response may hint at a deeper and more systemic problem confronting other legacy carriers---not just those engaged in a fight for survival. Quite simply, executives may have chosen to disbelieve what they were being told because it conflicted with what they wanted to hear.
The fact is that, for better or worse, fewer and fewer senior managers come up through the ranks of their own or other airlines. If they are too focused on yesterday's closing price and next week's P& L, they are in danger of isolating themselves from those on the ground level who understand what it takes to make an aircraft depart the gate ontime with the correct number of passengers and bags. Furthermore, they may have little emotional or intellectual connection to those frontline supervisors and lower and mid-tier managers who remain after years of layoffs and pay cuts. Yet it is those individuals who form the core of any airline's operation. Today, many are tired and they are supervising workers who often are just as worn out, and embittered to boot.
Last year was the first in which airline traffic exceeded the record level set in 2000, but US airlines---whose operational performance is monitored more easily than that of their foreign counterparts thanks to DOT's monthly reports---also experienced a noticeable deterioration in service standards. US Airways' December collapse was an extreme situation, but the data form a trend line that looks especially disturbing heading into the peak summer travel months.
In the Japanese kaizen style of production, any worker may bring the assembly line to a halt if he or she sees a problem developing. An airline can't cease flying every time a bag gets misplaced or a crew is out of position, but there needs to be a mechanism through which the frontline supervisors can say "stop" to the unworkable schedule being put together 12 floors above---before the crisis occurs.
It is tempting to treat airline breakdowns as isolated incidents rather than teachable moments, but this attitude needs to change because things such as the European Union's new passenger rights policy and FAA's intervention at Chicago O'Hare don't always occur from happenstance. Sometimes they are the result of big mistakes, such as those made my US Airways in December, Bristish Airways in the summers of 2003 and 2004 and Northwest Airlines in January 1999.
Today, after four years of layoffs and belt-tightening, the system is running flat-out, pedal to the metal, with nothing left in reserve to cope with the occasional hitch in the machine. And in such a situation it is vital that the CEO in the driver's seat is keyed to what is going on under the hood."
By: Perry Flint
Air Transport World
April, 2005
P. 5
"Last December, US Airways and Comair each suffered near simultaneous operation meltdowns over the Christmas holiday period, resulting in the cancellation of many hundreds of flights and the inconveniencing of nearly three quarters of a million passengers.
But there the similarity ends. Comair's problems were owing to an unfortunate confluence of two of commercial aviation's biggest dragons: Weather and computer problems. A severe ice storm at its Cincinnati hub literally froze aircraft to the tarmac. Then as Comair was recovering, its flightcrew scheduling system shut down due to a software glitch that arguably was unforeseeable by the airline.
At US Airways, the problems largely were manmade, as is clear in the detailed report commissioned by US Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta following both events. Keenly aware of personnel shortages amoung the flight attendant and ramp agent work groups, US Airways officials knew they were rolling the dice well before piles of unchecked luggage started reaching the ceiling in Philadelphia. To have flown the published schedule would have required near-perfect weather and operation conditions and better-than-average attendance from a worn down, depleted and resentful staff that was (and still is) living through a second bankruptcy reorganization. As it was, a bit of typical East Coast weather was all it took to set back the company's marketing efforts by a year or so. Leaders of the airline deserve no credit for the fact that as the situation unfolded, their first reaction was to blame union sickouts when no doubt they had been warned by lower downs in the management food chain that the system was held together with duct tape. Yet their response may hint at a deeper and more systemic problem confronting other legacy carriers---not just those engaged in a fight for survival. Quite simply, executives may have chosen to disbelieve what they were being told because it conflicted with what they wanted to hear.
The fact is that, for better or worse, fewer and fewer senior managers come up through the ranks of their own or other airlines. If they are too focused on yesterday's closing price and next week's P& L, they are in danger of isolating themselves from those on the ground level who understand what it takes to make an aircraft depart the gate ontime with the correct number of passengers and bags. Furthermore, they may have little emotional or intellectual connection to those frontline supervisors and lower and mid-tier managers who remain after years of layoffs and pay cuts. Yet it is those individuals who form the core of any airline's operation. Today, many are tired and they are supervising workers who often are just as worn out, and embittered to boot.
Last year was the first in which airline traffic exceeded the record level set in 2000, but US airlines---whose operational performance is monitored more easily than that of their foreign counterparts thanks to DOT's monthly reports---also experienced a noticeable deterioration in service standards. US Airways' December collapse was an extreme situation, but the data form a trend line that looks especially disturbing heading into the peak summer travel months.
In the Japanese kaizen style of production, any worker may bring the assembly line to a halt if he or she sees a problem developing. An airline can't cease flying every time a bag gets misplaced or a crew is out of position, but there needs to be a mechanism through which the frontline supervisors can say "stop" to the unworkable schedule being put together 12 floors above---before the crisis occurs.
It is tempting to treat airline breakdowns as isolated incidents rather than teachable moments, but this attitude needs to change because things such as the European Union's new passenger rights policy and FAA's intervention at Chicago O'Hare don't always occur from happenstance. Sometimes they are the result of big mistakes, such as those made my US Airways in December, Bristish Airways in the summers of 2003 and 2004 and Northwest Airlines in January 1999.
Today, after four years of layoffs and belt-tightening, the system is running flat-out, pedal to the metal, with nothing left in reserve to cope with the occasional hitch in the machine. And in such a situation it is vital that the CEO in the driver's seat is keyed to what is going on under the hood."
