Bill Mostellar
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2001
- Posts
- 319
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41701
BIZNETDAILY COMMENTARY
[font=Palatino,][size=+2]The airline industry: I told them so![/size][/font]
[size=-1]Posted: December 1, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
[/size]Editor's note: Business Reform Magazine provides real biblical answers for real business issues. To visit us, click here.
[font=Palatino,]By Marilyn Barnewall
[size=-1]© 2004 Business Reform [/size]
The airlines used to drive me nuts. They drive all frequent flyers nuts.
My relationship with the airlines began in 1980... about the time I nicknamed United the world’s largest, non-scheduled airline. That airline simply could not push away from the gate on time.
Until my son became an air traffic controller, I used to believe all of those intercom stories from pilots about “...it’s air traffic control’s fault, ladies and gents.” When I learned the truth -- that the reason air traffic had to reschedule our departure was because the plane did not pull away from the gate on time -- their lies angered me. It told me something I didn’t like about them.
In the good old days when I could work, I traveled about 200,000 miles each year. That’s a lot of airplanes, a lot of time lost to airline and airport inefficiencies... and a lot of lost luggage.
My favorite airline in those days was Continental. As long as Bob Six was around, they had more on-time departures than any other airline at Stapleton Inter-national in Denver. Continental was his baby and he tended it until health problems made it impossible. I met Bob Six when he was on the board of directors at United Bank of Denver.
I remember Eastern Airlines as being the nation’s worst for customer service – I’d say world’s worst, but Air France had them beat by a mile! Eastern’s entire attitude was “I’ll get to you when I get a minute... after I’ve finished talking with the other flight attendants about what a good weekend we all had.”
I am not exaggerating when I say that every time I flew Eastern, it appeared the number one item on their job description must be “talk with other airline employees about their personal lives and interests.”
Eastern was a large, older airline with the best routing system in the industry. Their great strength – routing – ended up being their greatest weakness.
To make a long story short, there were places in the east and southeast where I could get to my destination only on Eastern. I always disliked flying them... they were rude and supercilious people.
Some companies and some employees simply do not get the concept that customers pay their salaries.
I finally got so angry about something, I wrote a letter in the 80s to the ex-astronaut who became Eastern’s president. I got a letter back with the usual corporate pap... “This is not the way our company does business. This was a mistake... give us another chance.”
The problem was, I gave them a lot of chances before I got indignant enough to take the time to write a letter. I had better things to do than tell them how badly they were running their business. I was trying to be helpful.
Business customers (and medical patients) value their time at least as much as those who serve them. It is not okay to make customers pay you to waste their time because of you or your company’s inefficiencies.
I wrote a letter back to Eastern explaining that I did not to write letters about imagined affronts to me as a customer. The affront was real and violated FAA safety procedures. I sent a copy of the letter to the FAA – a lot of good that did (Eliza-beth Dole was the Secretary of Transportation).
In one brief paragraph, I tried to explain to them the concept of how the abuse of power causes loss of power.
They didn’t get that, either. They were too big, too important to lose their power. Didn’t I know that?
I’d done my part. I warned them. I told them if they didn’t change their ways, their very arrogance as a company would cause them to fail. Their corporate culture was so permeated by arrogance the entire corporate culture couldn’t even recognize it for what it was.
I’m sure they got a good laugh out of my letter... until a couple of years later when, as I predicted they would, they failed.
Rather than learning from Eastern’s experience, United, Delta and American appear to follow in its path. Each became quite impressed with its corporate size and power. They are learning the lessons we get taught when we begin to take our opinions of how wonderful we are seriously. The lesson of humility is very difficult for some of us.
United and American are dealing with the potential realities of bankruptcy. Delta, once the best airline in America, started going downhill soon after it unionized. Southwest out-ranks them in customer satisfaction. So, too, does Frontier.
I remember the pilot’s strike back in 1984-85. When the Continental union pilots went on strike, Frank Lorenzo (then heading Continental) hired non-union pilots and ran things like business as usual.
After a week of working in the nation’s capitol at the American Bankers Association, I was taking a United flight from Washington’s National Airport to Chicago. Eye surgery was scheduled. I would stay with my sister until I was recovered.
As I checked in, the United ticket agent noticed I had flown Continental into the D.C. area. He smirked as he asked me if it didn’t worry me, flying with all of those inexperienced Continental pilots. Headlines earlier in the week announced that a Contin-ental pilot made a mistake and landed on a taxi strip instead of the runway. No one was injured.
“Well,” I said, “According to the research report I read this week, the pilots who have the highest percentage of injury accidents are those who have been with an airline for more than ten years. I guess they get bored or begin to take things for granted. No. It doesn’t bother me.”
I felt like sneering... but he was doing enough of that for both of us.
I boarded the plane, a 727. I was carrying a Compaq computer – it was big, and it was heavy in those pre-laptop days.
After we boarded and the Captain was revving up the engines to back away from the concourse, the engines were suddenly shut down.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” came the Captain’s voice on the intercom. “We need you to depart the airplane quickly through the rear exit.” His voice was very calm.
“We have had a bomb threat and therefore you need to take all your carry-on luggage off the plane with you to be examined by security.”
The back door of a 727 is at the very back of the aircraft... between the two tail engines. I was in row 3, at the front of the aircraft. Remember, I said I was carrying a very heavy computer (plus purse and brief-case)?
And that jerk thought I was in danger flying with non-union pilots at Continental!
Marilyn Barnewall, in 1978, was the first female to be named vice president in charge of a major loan and deposit portfolio at Denver’s largest bank. She started the nation’s first private bank, resigned to start her own firm and consulted for banks of all sizes in America and other countries. In June 1992, Forbes dubbed Barnewall “the dean of American private banking.” Author of several banking texts, she has written extensively for the American Banker, Bank Marketing Magazine, and was U.S. consulting editor for Private Banker International (Lafferty Publications, London/Dublin). Article originally appeared in the Grand Junction Free Press. Marilyn can be reached at [email protected]. [/font]
BIZNETDAILY COMMENTARY
[font=Palatino,][size=+2]The airline industry: I told them so![/size][/font]
[size=-1]Posted: December 1, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
[/size]Editor's note: Business Reform Magazine provides real biblical answers for real business issues. To visit us, click here.
[font=Palatino,]By Marilyn Barnewall
[size=-1]© 2004 Business Reform [/size]
The airlines used to drive me nuts. They drive all frequent flyers nuts.
My relationship with the airlines began in 1980... about the time I nicknamed United the world’s largest, non-scheduled airline. That airline simply could not push away from the gate on time.
Until my son became an air traffic controller, I used to believe all of those intercom stories from pilots about “...it’s air traffic control’s fault, ladies and gents.” When I learned the truth -- that the reason air traffic had to reschedule our departure was because the plane did not pull away from the gate on time -- their lies angered me. It told me something I didn’t like about them.
In the good old days when I could work, I traveled about 200,000 miles each year. That’s a lot of airplanes, a lot of time lost to airline and airport inefficiencies... and a lot of lost luggage.
My favorite airline in those days was Continental. As long as Bob Six was around, they had more on-time departures than any other airline at Stapleton Inter-national in Denver. Continental was his baby and he tended it until health problems made it impossible. I met Bob Six when he was on the board of directors at United Bank of Denver.
I remember Eastern Airlines as being the nation’s worst for customer service – I’d say world’s worst, but Air France had them beat by a mile! Eastern’s entire attitude was “I’ll get to you when I get a minute... after I’ve finished talking with the other flight attendants about what a good weekend we all had.”
I am not exaggerating when I say that every time I flew Eastern, it appeared the number one item on their job description must be “talk with other airline employees about their personal lives and interests.”
Eastern was a large, older airline with the best routing system in the industry. Their great strength – routing – ended up being their greatest weakness.
To make a long story short, there were places in the east and southeast where I could get to my destination only on Eastern. I always disliked flying them... they were rude and supercilious people.
Some companies and some employees simply do not get the concept that customers pay their salaries.
I finally got so angry about something, I wrote a letter in the 80s to the ex-astronaut who became Eastern’s president. I got a letter back with the usual corporate pap... “This is not the way our company does business. This was a mistake... give us another chance.”
The problem was, I gave them a lot of chances before I got indignant enough to take the time to write a letter. I had better things to do than tell them how badly they were running their business. I was trying to be helpful.
Business customers (and medical patients) value their time at least as much as those who serve them. It is not okay to make customers pay you to waste their time because of you or your company’s inefficiencies.
I wrote a letter back to Eastern explaining that I did not to write letters about imagined affronts to me as a customer. The affront was real and violated FAA safety procedures. I sent a copy of the letter to the FAA – a lot of good that did (Eliza-beth Dole was the Secretary of Transportation).
In one brief paragraph, I tried to explain to them the concept of how the abuse of power causes loss of power.
They didn’t get that, either. They were too big, too important to lose their power. Didn’t I know that?
I’d done my part. I warned them. I told them if they didn’t change their ways, their very arrogance as a company would cause them to fail. Their corporate culture was so permeated by arrogance the entire corporate culture couldn’t even recognize it for what it was.
I’m sure they got a good laugh out of my letter... until a couple of years later when, as I predicted they would, they failed.
Rather than learning from Eastern’s experience, United, Delta and American appear to follow in its path. Each became quite impressed with its corporate size and power. They are learning the lessons we get taught when we begin to take our opinions of how wonderful we are seriously. The lesson of humility is very difficult for some of us.
United and American are dealing with the potential realities of bankruptcy. Delta, once the best airline in America, started going downhill soon after it unionized. Southwest out-ranks them in customer satisfaction. So, too, does Frontier.
I remember the pilot’s strike back in 1984-85. When the Continental union pilots went on strike, Frank Lorenzo (then heading Continental) hired non-union pilots and ran things like business as usual.
After a week of working in the nation’s capitol at the American Bankers Association, I was taking a United flight from Washington’s National Airport to Chicago. Eye surgery was scheduled. I would stay with my sister until I was recovered.
As I checked in, the United ticket agent noticed I had flown Continental into the D.C. area. He smirked as he asked me if it didn’t worry me, flying with all of those inexperienced Continental pilots. Headlines earlier in the week announced that a Contin-ental pilot made a mistake and landed on a taxi strip instead of the runway. No one was injured.
“Well,” I said, “According to the research report I read this week, the pilots who have the highest percentage of injury accidents are those who have been with an airline for more than ten years. I guess they get bored or begin to take things for granted. No. It doesn’t bother me.”
I felt like sneering... but he was doing enough of that for both of us.
I boarded the plane, a 727. I was carrying a Compaq computer – it was big, and it was heavy in those pre-laptop days.
After we boarded and the Captain was revving up the engines to back away from the concourse, the engines were suddenly shut down.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” came the Captain’s voice on the intercom. “We need you to depart the airplane quickly through the rear exit.” His voice was very calm.
“We have had a bomb threat and therefore you need to take all your carry-on luggage off the plane with you to be examined by security.”
The back door of a 727 is at the very back of the aircraft... between the two tail engines. I was in row 3, at the front of the aircraft. Remember, I said I was carrying a very heavy computer (plus purse and brief-case)?
And that jerk thought I was in danger flying with non-union pilots at Continental!
Marilyn Barnewall, in 1978, was the first female to be named vice president in charge of a major loan and deposit portfolio at Denver’s largest bank. She started the nation’s first private bank, resigned to start her own firm and consulted for banks of all sizes in America and other countries. In June 1992, Forbes dubbed Barnewall “the dean of American private banking.” Author of several banking texts, she has written extensively for the American Banker, Bank Marketing Magazine, and was U.S. consulting editor for Private Banker International (Lafferty Publications, London/Dublin). Article originally appeared in the Grand Junction Free Press. Marilyn can be reached at [email protected]. [/font]
