Too Many Chiefs …

… and the Question about System Relevant Jobs

Today I had a very emotional discussion about the need for new IT, new processes and all that other stuff the consulting industry keeps telling us, we got to have. Consultants, that have a standing relation inside the aviation company, with constant projects to “improve” and streamline the work.

At what cost?

Having addressed Consulting, Outsourcing, Cloud? COTS or tailormade back in August 2020, we meanwhile discussed over and again the issue of “System Relevant Jobs”. Back in my economics studies, 40 years ago, the general manager of my intern company questioned the increasing “management jobs” by academics, reminding, emphasizing that in the end, it is all about products. Even in whole sale (it was a central logistics warehouse) it’d be a question about benefit for seller and buyer, where the warehouse we worked in distributed the goods to the own satellite stores. He warned, that every intermediary becomes a leech and products becoming more expensive, not cheaper, by adding more and more intermediaries into the pool. His assumption was that 50% management surplus would be viable. And I should mention that he warned about dependencies from “rogue countries”, like China. Cheap but at what cost?

Being very pro globalization in general, he did call it hypocrisy to buy cheap in China, knowing that this is simply based on abuse of work force and stealing of patents and other ideas from other countries – back in the days, China did not much invent themselves, they were known copycats. In Germany meanwhile called “precarious jobs”, that don’t provide decent living, the living standards of workers in China at the time were at best questionable.

System Relevant Jobs

Is your job “system relevant”? If you work in home office, I can tell you the answer is No. If you work in consulting, I can very likely tell you the answer being No. Working in aviation and transport, the answer very likely is No. And if your salary is above average, the answer also very likely is No.

It’s all about leeches. Draining the money out of the really system relevant people, who normally are overworked, but underpaid. Not on the picture are farmers, friends of the family farming, living since I grew up on the brink of bankruptcies over and again. With more and more demands and pay for their products (milk, meat, grain, etc.) being often below the cost of production. Then they get generously state aid, to keep them working on subsistence levels.

The NHS personnel is on strike, the medical situation there in the U.K., also in Germany, being devastating. 24 hour shifts, 3 days “on call” duty?

Logistics drivers, the one delivering all those fancy goods we all buy, paid at minimum wage or just very little above for good feeling? Uber being a gigacorn? Delivery “Heroes”? But the managers in their offices having a “decent salary”? Who’s doing the work and what do we pay them?

U.N. Sustainable Development Goals

There are 17 SDGs. But all statistics show that all of them are actually still deteriorating. And if companies call themselves “sustainable”, they usually focus on the easy SDGs, most times at the cost of the others. Yes, we invest into climate, we buy CO2-certificates. And buy our growing hunger for power from the grid. Sure we buy “green power”… We upgrade our HR Director to “Chief HR Officer” and call it a board position, but only on paper to look good. We invest in R&D to find solutions how we can become sustainable in the future, while we fight the unions and deny salary increases for our workers. We add the (female) position of Chief Sustainability Officer to express our commitment to the SDGs. Oops, we forgot to give her a budget or empower her responsibilities? Examples aplenty…

We need companies to do the right thing. To embrace sustainability and evolve. It’d give them a competitive edge, a USP. When I was a child, it was common that people worked for “Daimler” (Mercedes-Benz) or “Bosch” all their live. You looked after your stuff from post-school training to retirement – often even beyond. Then they became “Human Resources” to managers who turned “shareholder value” from “what’s good for the company” and “long-term thinking” into “what’s good for my bonus” and “who cares about the time after I’m gone”.

A Question of Respect

My “intern” boss (again) taught me respect for everyone. The guy on the fork-lift, the cleaners, truck drivers and “secretaries” (yeah, we still had those). He taught us to set up the coffee when it was empty and not bother the secretaries. To clean up ourselves to make the cleaners’ jobs easier. To think beyond our petty box as “office workers” and value the hard work of the real workers. Also to question, but then also embrace the value of our work. IF we added value.

And in the pandemic, we should have (but obviously didn’t) learn the other lesson. That it’s not enough to sit at the windows “applauding” the system relevant workers that went above and beyond any perceivable “line of duty”, but to pay them decently. To look after them and keep in mind that they also have families to sustain, vacation wishes that go beyond the balcony on an old residential block they only can afford with added state aid.

Beyond White- and Greenwashing

I recently attended a multi-week project by United Nations Climate Action on Circular Economy. And the need for lifecycle-assessment. But it was also mostly #talkthetalk and academic ideas. And I had several objectives that then led to my image about the panacea distraction.

Aside me wondering, of that lady in the image might be an unpaid intern? Another reflection of the value HR managers and their bosses have about the value of training and labor. Any employer not paying their interns should be put in the pillory. For labor abuse!

Oh yes, and that goes in line with midwifes that quit their jobs as governments don’t reduce but add to the legal strains in the job. Or riders asked to bring their own bikes – and repair, all at minimum wage and abusive “time management”. Or airlines outsourcing their pilots forcing them into bogus self-employment without vacation or sick-leave cover, paid wages below their own pilots. Back in my intern-days, there were “personnel agencies” too. But to hire someone for short-term was always about 50% higher cost than employing someone directly. What went wrong there?

Yes I could go on.

Food for Thought
Comments welcome!

Yes. Comments welcome: Do you agree, disagree, partially, am I right, wrong, do I oversee anything? Have your own examples? What would, could and should we do?

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Why Video-Conference Will Not Impact Air Travel

There has been an increase in shares vouching for video conferences to replace air travel post-Corona.

Conference Call Bingo – click to enlarge

Face to Face

There is a lot in a personal conference that is not available in a video call, especially on multi-personal level. Who stands with whom, looks at each other, stands apart, shuffles papers, scribbles notes, shows interest, looks away (and why). Aside the sole focus on the call or conference when you’re onsite and out of your “common environment”. You paid to get there, you focus on the conference and not on your daily chores and tasks.

Call Quality, Disruptions

Then there is the (video) call-quality. Especially on video-calls and webinars these days, even using the best provider to organize it online, the video often enough fails, speech becomes unintelligible, not just users, even the speakers get disconnected. Disrupting the thought, the statement, the information. Surely at the most inconvenient of times!

Lesson Learned 2002

What it does keep reminding me is that for 2002, in the wake of 9/11, we had the very same discussion. And I brought in a video-conferencing-specialist to speak at ITB Travel Technology Congress. And while the big players added video conference rooms to their portfolio, they turned to dust-bins quickly. I know, c’mon, that was 20 years ago. And we simply don’t tend to learn from history. There’s all the young smart-asses leaving university. They have no experience with extensive travel, their live has been virtual, they are still to learn the lessons.

Perceived Importance

The last issue is emotional, psychological. Which we found out post-9/11 already. There is the factor of “importance” when you are send to travel to meet your client. And I do not speak about the true importance to show your flag at your client. But the perceived importance for the traveler.

A face-to-face is valued a lot higher than any video-call. Have I met the person in real-life? What was my impression? Those are valid reasons to justify your trip to your boss. But especially for middle and lower management, the effect is fare more on a motivational level. To be “allowed” to travel raises your perceived standing. In the company much more important that with your client. The meeting could be sufficiently covered with a video conference, especially when done properly – not via Skype, Viber, etc. But to be “allowed” the expense to travel to the client raises your internal standing, your (imagined) “importance”.

Whereas for the manager of the traveler, that very motivational impact might very well justify the travel expense. So don’t disqualify it. But be aware of it.

Video-Call Will Replace Travel?

Naaaw. No it won’t. I have video calls with my family when traveling, my mom living 600 km away, friends around the world. And especially during the lock-down I keep with my network attending webinars, video and voice-only conference and one-on-one calls. And can’t wait to see all my counterparts in person either on conferences, on business trips and visits. Video-calls replace phone calls. But they don’t have what it takes to replace the real face-to-face.

Food for Thought
Comments Welcome!

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Enable the Future. Now.

As for your Future, your task is not to forsee the future, but to enable it!

That is our job! Especially now.

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The True Meaning of Corporate Social Responsibility

For quite a while, I am stumbling over the issue of the common investor understanding of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and their implication that it is the same as Sustainability. Which it is not.

Wikipedia a.k.a. an Academic Idea

Reading the Wikipedia page about it, they see it as a high-level code of conduct for large, international organisations. And focused on the representation of the company towards its customers. I think we must step back and make a change. A change to how we must understand corporate social responsibility. And not just, but especially in times of Corona, this is not a nice to have, it is a desperately needed definition update!

Shareholder Value vs. CSR

If you focus on shareholder value, human resources and only your own, personal profit, you end up in a deep, dark pit. Sometimes, like Boeing’s Muilenburg and others who have been on the Olymp, just for that much deeper a fall. Examples aplenty.

In most cases, it’s like the recent decline in employee morale at Lufthansa, Carsten Spohr shelving Germanwings in a “strategic” and likely necessary move, but without the touch to understand the emotional repercussions on overall staff. Them having very well in mind the fate of Contact Air, Cirrus Airlines, but also Air Berlin with their last CEO a Spohr-lackey sent to liquidate the airline. And sure, there is quite some green- and whitewashing involved by such CEOs, having their own “sustainability” and “CSR” departments.

Basic Principle

So what is “CSR” truly about? Or should be? Like with all such “definitions”, there has been a basic idea. Then it was abused to abstraction to #whitewash investments and make them attractive to investors.

To understand the original idea behind corporate social responsibility you simply need to read it. It is everything about the social responsibilities in corporate (organisational) environments. Is it social to support sustainability? Definitely. But not only. Those definitions applied to CSR crippled the original definition. Then the #whitewashing continued. As Wikipedia refers to, there’s a cost-benefit analysis. Don’t get me wrong, it makes sense. But then let’s name it – it’s a business model, has nothing to do with philanthropy.

Micro Level Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility starts with your immediate environment: Your own organisation!

When I started my aviation career with American Airlines under Bob Crandall, we were a family. My friends at Delta and Pan Am envied us for that family spirit, called us “brain washed”. To date, we were not brain washed, but professionally motivated. Something I miss since the button counters took over. Something Carolyn McCall at easyJet understood and (as I predicted) what left easyJet with her. The top management understanding that humans are no resource and that motivated staff and service are invaluable assets!

Aside the example i used on the different approaches between Alex Cruz at British Airways and Branson’s Virgin Atlantic, there was a noteworthy post by Tony Fernandes of Air Asia. Please read it, this is only a key message out of it:

“What always drove us was our people, our AllStars . It’s what’s drives us every time we are in a Crisis. We must do whatever to protect their jobs.”

CSR the KOLIBRI.aero Style

Co-Founder Ndrec coming from a military background, me grown up with American military and starting my career with American, it was clear from the very start, that developing such a better airline, aside profitability ☑ (check), USPs ☑ (check) and sustainability ☑ (check), we must take care of “ours”. What we considered and consider true “CSR”. From the outset, we such looked at staff management and banned to wording of “Human Resources” and its shortened version “HR”. And we looked at the locations we plan bases for, beyond the company, but the impact such development has to the communities “we serve”.

It might be surprising to the bean counters (accountant-mindset “managers”) that all of our related “cost centers” turned out to be no just driving loyalty, but to be true profit centers and vital in our attempt to melt the cost factors to competitive levels. As a start-up, investing into all the company’s assets, you must be competitive against all those large, established companies like easyJet owning around 70% of their fleet, cost down to maintenance, with roughly 25% being paid off and around 5% being leased to cover ad hoc opportunities (like taking over Air Berlin routes). And while now being a “burden” in Corona times, airlines cannot drop out of leasing either, so the cost still is there. But those airlines can secure credits based on their (aircraft) assets. To develop profit centers that allow to cut down the cost to competitive levels such ain’t a mere strategy, but a vital need.

Summary

As in all my posts addressing moral and ethics, I turn back to my father, who told me that you got to be first and foremost someone you see in the mirror and you like the guy. Secondly, despite all mistakes you do, you must keep your sheet clean. Your sins will backfire on you.

So you got to start with the good old (wo)man in the mirror. Then think about “yours truly”, family, employees. Then look after the extended community, local and work. If you look at all that, sustainability will be a “natural development” for you.

Food for Thought
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The Dying of Social Media

Look to Book

… or the question of leeching.

Social networks become more and more inactive, “leechers” that consume but not share their own opinion even with a “like”. In “online booking”, we called that a “look to book ratio”. In Germany, we call it the “caller in the forest” (echos, but no replies). In modern times it’s called the “social media bubble”. Which statistics say consist of 100:1 or worse “data corpses”.

But this is about success eating its children. The larger your network, the more information jumps up on the timeline. With little to no “filtering”, much of those “news” showing on the timeline becomes “irrelevant”. The more often you post, the more the social networks show your news on your followers timeline. Whereas I would like to be attracted every time someone posts who does not post that often. But then we come to Post Expiration and Information Flooding:

Post Expiration

How long are posts visible in social networks — Source: Sprocketwebsites (click on image)

In my last years qualification on “online marketing”, there were some interesting statistics about post visibility, that I found quite interesting.

What is not covered here are the increasingly used online chat tools like WhatsApp, Skype, etc. – posts there are lasting minutes.

You may remember my articles sharing my experience with LinkedIn articles and also media campaigns. As a result, already four years ago, I discontinued writing “articles” on LinkedIn, but with ongoing visits to my blog archive articles, LinkedIn articles (different from the normal posts) have a life span of about three days – older articles are not having relevant visitor numbers ever after.

Now companies, SEO-experts etc. tell you to post constantly to show constantly on those “channels”. But that turns, no it backfires into

Information Flooding (1)

For which there are two reasons. And both reasons are in reality counterproductive.

In the beginning, Facebook promoted to post “everything”. Other companies built on that and developed i.e. restaurant reviews and posting of food, selfies from the weirdest places on Earth, etc. – now people post all relevant and irrelevant stuff and clog the timelines. Where it was nice in the beginning to get input from friends, now the flood of irrelevant information makes the tools largely unusable. A business friend recently asked me why I did not respond to his latest posts. Well, I was busy with real life and did not even see those posts, they were long gone when I logged in again. Don’t get me wrong, I did the same mistake. Posted irrelevant things, missing out on relevant news.

Now I will intentionally limit my Facebook to less but higher quality posts. So this week I deleted my all the old content (since 2008) of my Facebook profile. I decided to keep my profile but only for an occasional look, the most important “updates” and use of the messenger to reach out to my friends. But it took me three days to remove all that data, even using Chrome Apps that allow bulk cleaning – with some bugs to slow you down anyway. Now I can “restart” with focus on quality, not quantity.

Back in 2016, I removed my “articles” from LinkedIn, after I found them to be seen just a few days with little interaction, whereas this blog, with the same little interaction except from the same people, has several thousand readers meanwhile and a constant flow of readers on the “old” articles as well. Except for a few readers they do not interact, not even with the easy “like” button I’ve added to all posts some years ago. It keeps motivating to hear on conferences that people obviously follow my blog, referring to my articles.

Information Flooding (2)

I also last year discontinued to actively use Skype and drop WeChat. Same reason. In business and with friends I now mostly use Viber, WhatsApp (another Facebook-company). Many years ago, I decided to stick my newsletters to ten. As I can’t keep following the flood of information, it distracts from doing business and make money to sustain my family.

A friend on a conference talked about the “first screen” on the mobile phones. While they become bigger, you also need to decide, which apps make it to your first screen. My new smart phone has space for 30 app icons. I may be unusual by having my apps grouped and using folders, even on first screen, but yes, I have my few important ones.

Social Networking – Lessons Learned

In the expensive Social Media lectures I attended last spring, on which I shared my lessons learned, I mainly learned that if you are a good marketeer, the same rules apply on- and offline. It also confirmed, I can spend all the time someone wants to pay me for, to analyse the online performance with KPIs that are the same useless as the QSI (Quality Service Indicator) as they are set and defined by the analyst with an intentional or (rarely) unintentional outcome in mind: “you are going to get very quickly to ‘factors’ and ‘coefficients’. And that they are variables, subject to interpretation and weighting, they are “relative values” (from The Bias of Route Viability Analysis, Dec. 17).

We all know of headlines that celebrities (and companies) bought and buy “followers”. Implying that all those leechers make an impact to your business. While it may take longer to grow your real “Stammkunden” (patrons, regular customers), only the ones that “buy” or stimulate a purchase by recommendation are valuable to your business. In the end it you got to pay your bills!

Marketing is about reputation management, it’s about indirect sales, but in the end, marketing is a part of sales and sales support. Brand is marketing, but in the end it is to stimulate memory and reputation and bring the brand to mind in the purchasing process. Neither marketing, nor brand, nor sales or public relations are an end to themselves. They are to stimulate business and keep the coin rolling.

So where do “Social Networks” fit in here? Same issue. Commercially, it does not help to have leechers. You need either buyers, or ambassadors. That must be first and foremost on your activities. Privately, you neither want leechers, you want people that share information with you, to discuss, agree or disagree, help you to evolve.
So I split my activities to two layers. Connecting with friends. While I appreciate a lot of Facebook “friends”, interaction is limited to very few. I will keep posting occasionally there, but just personal and limited to friends and only the “important” news, not to “flood” my friend’s timelines! I use LinkedIn for business and have some other responses there, confirming the value of the network. Xing is a German social network, but I keep finding them focused on job opportunities. So don’t expect me to do much there.

Instagram? Twitter? YouTube? Tik Tok? Yes I could do more there. If you convince me to drop LinkedIn for better impact to my information exchange with friends…?

And if you want my opionion, feel free to reach out to me or to share. I’ll keep watching my Facebook timeline for updates and on occasion also look at Instagram. You can reach me directly using Viber or WhatsApp (if you have my number).

And again, it boils down to my early mentor Richard Eastman‘s favorite quote:

“For those who agree or disagree, it is the exchange of ideas that broadens all of our knowledge”

It is all about interaction, about exchange. Without a “feeback loop”, writing blogs or posting on Social Media becomes boring – in turn, more shares turn to leechers – and the slow dying of Social Media continues. And if you like this post, click onto the little like button… If you did not, let me know what I could do better or where I’m far off in your opinion. Preferably not by e-Mail or direct message, but use the comments function this blog has.

Food for Thought
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SEO, SEM – Who Do You Write For?

As many of you know, from March to June, I attended a full-time qualification in Online-P.R. (public relations), online-marketing, search-engine optimization (SEO), marketing (SEM) and analysis (SEA) and online advertising. Sure this was contemporary in an online class room I had to log-in at prescheduled times.

The motivation to do that was an implied lack of online experience, a missing understanding of the intricacies (details) what makes online different from the classic offline. That this was a bold misperception on my own can be seen in the results. All three exams I finished with 100% (grade 1.0). I was mostly unchallenged, contributed to the topics, explained and even on several occasions proved the tutors wrong.

What surprised me most is the fact that there is an industry that claims that this is all new and you need all new experts and agencies doing it for you. But if you properly learned your business, it is nothing new at all. The rules are all the same! In addition, I found there is simply an industry implying and claiming value where there is none. We talked and learned a lot about analysis, but you can analyse yourself to death. To do an analysis of one simple “advertising” or “website optimization” for the search engines took hours. Aside the need for external (mostly paid) services.

Google Analytics vs. Matomo

I still believe, the tutor on search engine optimization and analysis has been paid to use certain tools. There is no alternative to Google Analytics? Feed the big monster your internal data? By adding Google Analytics, Google learns about “hidden pages” and if they are not password protected, Google can (and does) parse them. Yes, I know many cases where Google had access to pages that were not linked elsewhere. Funny as that is, I have my browser to only accept cookies from the website I visit and not from “third party websites” (like Google Analytics). A not uncommon setting That results in an offset with Google, counting me again and again and again.

Instead of Google Analytics, I prefer Matomo on Premise analytics. They also offer “in the cloud” (on Matomo servers), but that results in the same shortcomings as Google and comes with a price tag. So if you want to become independent of releasing sensitive information to Google, go to Matomo on Premise. If you use WordPress, they are in the process (Beta testing phase) for Matomo for WordPress, which I am about to test on this blog.

As Matomo runs on your own server, the cookies work properly an the analysis are as good – sometimes better, sometimes worse, just like the difference between Apple iOS and Android or Open Office vs. Microsoft.

Who Do You Write For?

If you have subscribed to the RSS or follow my posts on LinkedIn, you may recall my note on the June-post, which I “optimized” for Search Engines (aka. SEO). And analysed. Funny as that is, the website did not appear much better in the real world search engines. Slightly maybe. But I got quite some feedback from my friends reading this, that I shall go back to write “my style”.

Search Engine Analysis

I somewhat expected that, but was quite shocked to the extend of the quality (or lack of it) of search engine analysis. While we looked at real websites, analyzing using several different services (including Google Analytics), we could create success by the selection of analysis results. It was another fantastic example on the proverb usually (incorrectly) attributed to Winston Churchill: “The only statistics you can trust are the once you falsified yourself”. Presented then to managers without the experience, it all looks shiny and good, but is simply Hokus Pokus.

The Fairy Tale of Reach

How do you qualify “Reach”? By the visitors? See above on Google Analytics relying on IP and Cookie – a cookie they never get in my case. At home, I have a new IP every 24 hours (thanks to my internet provider). Talking to Marketing Managers, I keep getting the confirmation of what I learned in the early days of Internet. In the GDS and first online tools we talked about the “Look to Book Ratio”.

In the good old GDS era before Internet, a travel agent looked up an availability (for a flight, hotel, rental car, etc.). Talking to the customer, the booking was confirmed, a “look to book ration of 5 I believe to remember. At the dawn of online travel booking, the processes got instant. First the availability. Then a booking. But to book, the availability was redone. And that is just the tip of the iceberg of the complexities we (I) resolved developing the first online booking tool in Europe. The look to book ratio exploded. Even adding sophisticated caching (reuse of data), the systems had to “evolve” to manage the increase in processing power needed.

But how does that compute with “Reach”? Reach are generally unique visits. Some SEA-experts use simple visits – every time someone visits or revisits a website or page. Even with the more accurate unique visits, a visit does not tell you anything on any revenue being generated. Except if you use banner ads and get paid by vistor. Aside visits, there is clicks. Most advertisements are “per click”, at least that brings a visitor to the targeted website. But while P.R. and Marketing are not Sales, they are not an end to themselves but must result in promoting the product and services and generate revenue. I know many P.R. and Marketing Managers (and their bosses) not understanding the difference.

If you believe “Reach” is your goal and you value “Reach” above all else, I hope that that reach results in revenue. And you can have the best reach with no revenue. So I call reach a fairy tale. In the end, it is all about revenue. For sales, not only the price counts, but also brand, reputation and being in the mind of the customer. But it all boils down to being where the customer is when the customer needs your products or services, to be in the mind and to come up.

Key Performance Indicators

I think this time we got the numbers right … we just don’t know which ones to use.

What are your KPIs, your key performance indicators in Marketing and P.R. qualifying success?

As a Chief Marketing Officer of a now bankrupt airline recently told me: “In Marketing KPIs are a smoke wall. Do you truly believe all those haters visiting your website are lovers? How can you distinguish visitors?”

They had all followers, all fans, all visitors – but not enough sales. Marketing is long term, make sure you’re seen, together with P.R. looking after your reputation, that it is good, but in the end, if they don’t steer sales and help to improve revenue, you can shunt their KPIs. Even “reputation” and “visibility” are only means to generate sales.

If you reach the wrong people, they don’t mean anything. So what’s your KPIs and are they clear? “The good ones in the little pot, the bad ones for your little crop”.

And our tutor showed us how to tamper the statistical outcome in your favor by selecting what confirms the wanted result. I call that cheating your bosses…

Summary

Wow, I already had five super discussions... -- Don't worry, I've not sold anything either...! — Wow, I already had five super discussions… — Don’t worry, I’ve not sold anything either…!

Talk to me if you are interested to discuss this. It’s a complex topic and can (and does) fill books. But to boil it down, the rules of engagement are the same on- or offline.

KPIs were in use long before Internet and mostly used as misleading as I see those agencies use them. And there is a very strong tendency by those agencies to justify their overvalued work as valuable. So they try to tamper the KPIs and the statistics in their favor.

Who do you write for? What is your goal? How can you reach the customer, spread your brand message, stimulate sales and reputation? If you look at it “academically”, you can spend your time analyzing your efforts to death and beautify the results to your liking or the one of your superiors.

Or you get things done, use two or three tools for analysis and make sure you understand KPIs and use them meaningful.

Sales will hardly work if you have no marketing, nor P.R., advertising and branding. But don’t overdo it. And don’t split them up, they got to interact and work together for a common goal. Revenue. Income.

Food for Thought
comments welcome!

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#flygskam (FlyShame) Reality Check

All the industry discusses #flygskam (flyshame), but even given sound studies disqualifying the topic, our own lobbyists fail to organize a concerted response to the case. Let’s have a reality check…

There were some reports recently on German television and in the media. German “Welt” (TV + newspaper) reported “Green (party) Demands: Climate Sin Domestic Flight? Abolition Hardly Saves CO₂“.

The use of ships to travel from Scandinavia or Britain to Europe or crossing the Mediterranean I think I don’t need to remind of the extreme emissions of cruise and other ships?

Rail Greenwashing

But there was another article even more to the point: “Where there is a will there is not always a train“. But there are some issues that are unrealistic. The numbers of German Rail are biased and greenwashed. They claim to use only “Green Power”. But in fact, published by the German Federal Environmental Agency, their power comes from the public grid and no matter what “deals” they do, it is grid power. And on the grid, in 2018 only 16.6% has been “Green” (Source). The energy industry accounts for 85% of all Greenhouse Gases of which 98% CO₂, the remainder being mostly Methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) (Source).

The Myth about Green German Rail — [Image with Link added Oct.21]

So in fact, the amount of greenhouse emissions by German Rail are considerably higher than advertised. As a report from 2018 shows, we talk about up to 83% “dirty energy” on the “green” energy companies… So if we increase the “public” German Rail assumption of 36g per km (greenwashed) and adjust it to reality, we talk about +200 g/km. Suddenly the published 201 g for flights is not so bad at all!

But what also needs to be taken into account is the emission per passenger. Be it rail, in average used 22% only, whereas those passengers are mostly commuters, filling up the trains above their limits in the rush hours. That is not only true for the commuter but also the long-haul routes. This year, the long-haul trains’ punctuality was only 69.8%. For 2018, German Rail reported 16 routes operating above capacity – passengers finding no seat being just another annoyance, half of the delays are a result of those overused routes. That 20% of the trains are in (often unscheduled) repairs, toilets and air condition known to be out of service just being others. Just a reminder, the average load factor of flights according to IATA is about 85%.

e-Mobility: Battery Greenwashing

Given the devastating destruction of the natural environment in Lithium mining, I do not understand that politicians push forward battery-based e-Mobility. Using fuel-cell technology we can use the existing gas stations infrastructure. Refueling takes only about five minutes! And given a broad use will lower the prices and make the technology available on smaller cars too. They can even power scooters, so don’t tell me it doesn’t work for a compact car!

Instead they promote an ecologically catastrophic technology with a completely missing loading infrastructure…?

More information I addressed in September 2021 in the post The e-Mobility Lie. Inspired by a documentary by German ZDF’s Planet(e): Mythos Elektroauto (naturally German). [Added Oct.21]

Ground Sealing

There is an important advantage of air travel to both rail and road that is frequently not addressed. The issue of ground sealing!

Airport

For an airport, about 2,500 x 45m are typically “sealed for the runway, in total about 3,000 by 400 m are required for a regional airport, of which only 25-30% of the ground are “sealed” by infrastructure, 70-75% being grass areas. So we talk about 400,000 m² of an average regional airport being “sealed.

Highway

A highway with four lanes is about 31 m wide with about 24 m being sealed. A 50 km highway such seals about 1.2 million m², so three times as much as a single airport. Highways are known to be an insurmountable obstacle for wildlife.

Rail

For Rail we talk about a minimum of 12 meters sealed width for 2 tracks, up to 20 meters on high speed train routes and and average of about 15 meters. So on 50 km of rail we talk about 600,000 m² of sealed ground. Before we start talking about the railway stations…

Ground Sealing Summary

I don’t have the number, not even for Germany, but it might be an interesting comparison for the aviation industry to compare the total ground sealed for highways (not talking about cities) and rail, compared to airports. I think that will be a devastating result for the ground transportation modes.

My hope on rail is that hyperloop we will not seal more ground, but will be established underground.

Bio-/SynKerosene

Yes, I am a big fan of the CO₂-tax. If it is used to compensate for bio- or better SynKerosene! So far, all eco-taxes are abused to cover up for growing demands of the policos for their “other agendas”. But did you know that the German air traffic accounts for less than 0.3% of the CO₂-emissions in Germany? (Source)

National Geographic last year reported about a development by Canadian Carbon Engineering, using CO₂ with hydrogen (H₂) to create artificial kerosene (and gasoline). Whereas there are industry sources to provide excessive CO₂, hydrogen can be created using solar parks. The resulting bio-kerosene is an independent power storage. As the CO₂ from burning that bio-kerosene equals the amount that was used from the environment, it is a completely climate neutral solution. And using solar energy for the electrolysis and the power needed for the processing, there is a power loss, but that is ecologically irrelevant.

But… Why do the media and politicos actively neglect those developments? Why do they go for dirty Lithium?

Summary

So what is the reality check for #flygskam (flight shame) vs. the “green rail”? Green rail is a myth, the power consumption not close as “green” as they say. Considering the ground sealing also favors aviation. And should we in aviation invest large scale into bio-kerosene, lowering the prices to competitive cost levels, replacing crude-oil-based fuel… A CO₂-tax such might be an enabler for the conversion. If our lobbyists would show balls, which I’m afraid from experience, they don’t have.

But sustainable transport, including air transport is acknowledged as an important factor in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to develop regions, counterbalancing inequalities and disparities!

I think it should not be aviation bashing, nor should we greenwash rail, but we should develop a sustainable transport network for everyone. Connect individual transport to rail, hyperloop or flight. It is the mix we need, not enemy stereotypes! And we need funds to support strategic projects selected, not the ones having the biggest lobbies. And “batteries” are no solution but a pest! Lithium mining destroys the planet!

#flyshame is out! Flying is a vital service for a global world. To disqualify it with false facts does not help to make our world a better place.

#railshame is my new buzzword!

Food for Thought!
Comments welcome…

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Goodbye Karl Fisch – Hello Karl Fisch?

It is with serious regret that I just learned (a little delayed) about the retirement of Karl Fisch, author of the first ever YouTube video that went viral having a lasting impact on my life. It became the first ever thing I blogged, when I moved over the first articles I wrote elsewhere to the FoodForThought-blog: Shift Happens Narrated. The post contains a short summary of what led to the story, it is the most-read post on my blog ever and keeps being read 5-10 times every months.

Three years ago, Karl wrote an article on his blog I recommend reading; The Shifty Years.

I hope you understand the respect when I quote another famous author for the farewell. May life treat you and yours kindly!

So long and thanks for all the Fisch (Original wallpaper by redditor RWalsky) — So long Karl – and thanks for all the Fisch!

So Long Karl … Thanks for all the Fisch … And I hope it’s not the last I’ve seen of you! Shift Happens.

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Cognitive Disonance Resolution

Working this week with a group on topics like P.R. and Corporate Strategy, there are some basic rules, again resurfacing on my conscious thinking…

Two topics were in hot, heated discussion these days, especially when we talked bout Cognitive Disonance: Greta Thunberg and Boeing 737MAX.

Greta Thunberg

Not only in the big cities around the globe, also in towns like Brunswick (Braunschweig), the movement Friday for Future is a root movement. Following the example of a little girl from Sweden, kids go demonstrating around the world to promote the need to counter climate change. In Germany, formerly pacemaker of “green development” the government is way behind their own targets, let’s not talk about the Paris world climate targets. In Tirana, the city “stinks” from car gasoline fumes. Scientists believe it’s not five to, but five after twelve already! We can only reduce the impact, no longer avoid it.

So now, surprise surprise, that kid in Sweden went on the street to demonstrate against the political powers that be (PTBs) ignorance. That action triggered a cord and other kids around the world thought it a good idea and joined in the demonstration. Demanding action to secure their future. And all those PTBs can respond with is that they’d be truants? Their only reason to go on the streets is to be skipping school? That’s all you can come up with? Sure there are the one or other camp-followers, but mostly those kids have genuine concern about their planet.

But their activity provides a good example for cognitive dissonance. They put a finger in a wound that most of “us” adults have long found our way to suppress. Because the information does not compute. We know we kill the planet, but let the others start saving it. What can I do?

My personal answer is to support the kids. To not “look away” and “blame the others”. In German history, our people looked away, the blamed others. It caused a holocaust.

Michael Jackson sang about “The Man in the Mirror” to make a change.

In Germany we had a barrel-burst campaign “You are Germany” – what do you do to make things better?

Interesting, what discussions are triggered, discussing cognitive dissonance resolution and how different nationalities and cultural background result in totally different approaches. In Germany, a typical approach is to dissect good ideas and find faults. Can’t tell you, how many “friends” in the past year told me that KOLIBRI.aero cannot work. It did very often remind me of that favorite quote by Lazarus Long (a Robert A. Heinlein character): “Always listen to the experts! They tell you it is impossible and why you can not do it. When you know that: Go Ahead!

Boeing B737MAX

Another very good example and discussion topic this week about cognitive dissonance resolution was the Boeing B737MAX.

Our industry always promotes Safety First. But I have a lot of examples that our industry works on the limits, hoping for the best. Be it my recent post about disruption management or the managing of airport turnaround (A-CDM), we all know that we do not work efficiently. But cognitive dissonances often result in ignorance, suppressing conflicting information. We know the truth, but we suppress it, give ourselves explanations to justify the shortcomings.

Now there was another crash of the Boeing B737MAX after Lion Air Flight 610 crashed in Malaysia half a year ago (29Oct18). While there are also “supporting reasons”, as usual a chain of events that leads to disaster, I personally believe it was mainly the ignorance of Boeing engineers, developing an MCAS, not informing pilots about such an important design change. Combined with a semi-religious faith in their technology. But I believe computers are there to assist us. I remember the Air France flight 447, where the instruments showed wrong data, switched off the computer, in result the flight stalled and crashed into the the Atlantic. We also should be reminded about the “unsinkable” Titanic.

After the recent crash in Ethiopia, there were calls for grounding of the aircraft instantly, given the similarity to Lion Air 610. It is noteworthy and was discussed very controversial, that our own minister responsible for aviation voiced against a grounding, only to be overruled by EASA. But neither America, nor Europe responded “safety first”, but focused on the commercial impacts of a grounding instead. Meanwhile even the U.S. under Donald Trump confirmed the necessity of the grounding and aviation sources expect that grounding to take on for several month. Which does remind again of the pioneer in jetliners, the de Havilland Comet, loosing three aircraft in nine months, which lead to understanding of metal fatigue on the air frame called by the way the metal was connected using bolts – creating micro-fractures.

Oh Gawd... Helpdesk: Final Level. Pray — Boeing MCAS development

Now Boeing implements a new technology to cover up for the new behavior and instead of being transparent, they hide. Then the sh** hits the fan in Malaysia. The event now shows that Boeing did not operate “safety first”, but mismanaged it by delaying the necessary update. A result of cognitive dissonance resolutions? It must not be, so it is not? That backfired now and is a rather pathetic expression of professional disaster management. That the U.S. and Boeing had to be “convinced” to ground the aircraft has proven a big mistake. Today, the media reports that the Ethiopian officials confirm a very similar situation and “many parallelisms” to the Lion Air crash.

We cannot and must not operate on the Principal of Hope! An airliner recently posted that we need a crash to change something. I disagreed, but Boeing did itself and our industry a major disfavor to the reputation of aviation safety. Media today also refers back to the 787-incidents and grounding resulting from batteries catching fire. What I do not understand is that following Lion air Boeing P.R. obviously did not develop a “worse case communication plan”.

From Wikipedia: “On March 11, 2019, in response to the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines accidents, China was the first country to order all 96 of its 737 MAX aircraft grounded. In the days following the Ethiopian Airlines crash, airlines and authorities around the world suspended the operation of Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft (or in many cases all 737 MAX variants) one after another, contrasting with the usual coordinated approach. Two days later, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration […] became the last in the world to ground the aircraft, reversing its previous stance. Boeing eventually recommended the grounding to the FAA.”

It must not be! It cannot be! So it is not.
Cognitive Dissonance Resolution at work…

Food for Thought
Comments welcome!

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Category: Values

… and the Question about System Relevant Jobs

System Relevant Jobs

U.N. Sustainable Development Goals

A Question of Respect

Beyond White- and Greenwashing

Static Pages

The First Post

Frequently Referenced and Visited Posts

December 2019

2017 … 2016

2015 … 2014

2013 … 2012 … 2011

2010 … 2009

Face to Face

Call Quality, Disruptions

Lesson Learned 2002

Perceived Importance

Video-Call Will Replace Travel?

Wikipedia a.k.a. an Academic Idea

Shareholder Value vs. CSR

Basic Principle

Micro Level Social Responsibility

CSR the KOLIBRI.aero Style

Summary

Look to Book

Post Expiration

Information Flooding (1)

Information Flooding (2)

Social Networking – Lessons Learned

Google Analytics vs. Matomo

Who Do You Write For?

Search Engine Analysis

The Fairy Tale of Reach

Key Performance Indicators

Summary

Rail Greenwashing

e-Mobility: Battery Greenwashing

Ground Sealing

Airport

Highway

Rail

Ground Sealing Summary

Bio-/SynKerosene

Summary

Greta Thunberg

Boeing B737MAX