Category: Values

Aviation, IT, Low Cost, Management, Values

Delay and Disruption Management

“Our Heads Are Round so our Thoughts Can Change Direction” [Francis Picabia]

[edited]

Sharing the Bloomberg headline What Do You Want, Cheap Airfare or an On-Time Flight? Daniel (S.) today quoted from the article on LinkedIn:  “An ultra-low-cost carrier will never, ever try to be as punctual as a big legacy #airline. Being on time all or most of the time costs money.”

After an initial misunderstanding we agree: That is stupid!

Delay and disruption management are the single most important influenceable cost factors in aviation today!

Yes, we can make good aircraft deals, we use revenue management to sell out tickets as expensive as we can in the low-cost world. But operations is the single most important cost driver we can influence today. We can neglect it, like many seasoned airline and airport managers do, we can deny and ignore it. And loose money.

While doing the research at late delair for the Zurich Airport case study, focusing on the impact of a contemporary deicing management, just that improvement in (IT-supported) process saved about 20 million in one winter alone there. For Swiss (about 50% of the flights). Now working on a financial summary that thanks to the acquisition of delair by SITA never made it “to market”, I spoke with the OCC (Operations Control Center) manager of Swiss in Zurich. Who confirmed what they all knew (and know), but their management remains blissfully ignorant about: It is all about rotations in an airline. The aircraft starts somewhere in the morning and flies to different places throughout the day. And a disruption or delay anywhere en-route is prone to impact the entire rotation. Worse, a late aircraft usually accumulates more delays as ground handling is also tightly scheduled without spare manpower to cover up for such situations. Then crews fall out of schedule as they have to have their rest times. And while the airline may reduce the financial damage by calling for higher force on a snow event in the morning, on the flights down the line, I am told they tend to pay. And passenger compensation often exceeds the value of a single ticket!

In 2014 I wrote this article about Airport Operations Center (APOC), Airline Operations Control Center (OCC) and ATC’s Network Operations Center (NMOC) and how they do not communicate with each other. I asked just recently about a common airline system with decent, contemporary, f***ing basic interfaces and learned that none of my precious industry expert friends knows such. Worse, I got more feedback than I wanted about the issues all my friends in this industry can tell about; where thanks to missing such data flow, the right hand does not know what the left one is doing. In the process, trying to improve a bad situation, but working with different information, making things often enough worse.

I also heard just this week, how airline managers love the big planes (A380), a Lufthansa manager was quoted that they love the big bird, but that they don’t know if they can ever be operated long-term commercially revenue-making.  Or read a comment, how much these airline “managers” love new inflight entertainment and seats and fancy stuff. But don’t understand, why Windows-XP-machines in their OCC need replacement. It’s “fancy”, touchable, visible to see the airplane or fancy seats, but no-one sees the impact of deicing. Okay, we have a winter-delay. Who cares, we’ve calculated it into our prices forever and it’s been always like this. It can be improved? Who cares.

Source firewalkeraussies.comAnd while the airlines benefit, I hear from the airports that they do not show any interest in A-CDM and A-CDM improvements. While they cut into the flesh on most airport’s fees, while they let them starve; while most airports need to invest heavily to compensate the losses from “aircraft handling” by doing their best to increase “non-aviation revenue”, while this is daily life today, airlines demand airports to invest into those technologies and development and process improvements, but are not willing to pay. Did Swiss pay a Penny (Rappen) for the improved deicing at their home airport? Make a guess.

So while I know that seasoned managers in aviation act that stupid and short-sighted. Delay and Disruption Management is the single most important factor we can influence to save big money.

As I should have known Daniel’s opinion, i.e. from his LinkedIn article about why airlines burn money every day I keep myself referring to.

And if you need someone to discuss such projects or to manage them? Keep me in mind. And Daniel 😉

Food for Thought
Comments welcome!

Aviation, Low Cost, Management, Values

The End of the Airport Passenger Fees?

“Our Heads Are Round so our Thoughts Can Change Direction” [Francis Picabia]
Inflight Shopping

As I outlined in my summary on the Hamburg Aviation Conference, my friend Daniel expressed his believe that within 20 years, there will be no more passengers fees.
At the same time, Michael O’Leary was recently quoted that he expects in very short time they will offer the flights for free.
But flying costs money, no matter how good the aircraft engines become, terminal construction and maintenance, ground handling, air traffic control, gasoline, pilots, cabin crews, aircraft, insurance, it all needs to be paid. And no matter how effective you calculate …

… someone has to pay the bill.

Airlines lower their ticket prices, covering the “loss” with “ancillary revenues”. While those “ancillaries” have been understood as services previously bundled (inflight meal, baggage, flight insurance), they meanwhile extend quite into “inflight shopping”.

At the same time, traditionally airport landing fees, split into the landing and passengers, covered for the airports’ cost of operations and development. This basic, sensible model is now threatened. It will change. But how. When the airline and airports fight for the revenue of the passenger – I believe both will loose.

Airport Duty Free

So currently it is a fight between airport and airline for the money of the traveler. I hear airlines expressing their anger about the airports increasingly draining the pockets of the passengers pre- and post-flight. And the airports upset about architectural changes enforced by the evaporating aviation income, forcing them to add shopping in arrivals halls and rebuilding terminals for improved shopping, i.e. forcing the passenger through the duty free store. Or how to speed up the check-in process to increase the dwell time of the traveler to spend more money shopping. And the shop owners about the increasing pressure to cash in on the passenger in order to pay the expensive rental deals with the airports. And, and, and…

And no, it does not help to imply that the politicos should provide airports similar to train stations. Yes, it is true, airlines bring business to the regions. Airports are important infrastructure. But in the end … someone has to pay the bill.

Source firewalkeraussies.comWhat we will need is a serious, joint discussion about the future business model in aviation. At the moment there is no discussion. There’s the airlines, the airports and business models that cannot work. And we need to have the politicos and the usually government-controlled ATC (and border control, security, etc.), we have to have the ground handlers, the shops and all other players on the table. You can’t reconstruct all the small airports. We don’t need a fight. We got to work together for a sustainable business model. ERA, AAAE, IATA, ICAO, this is your call.

Food for Thought
Comments welcome

Values

My 2016/17 New Year’s Resolutions

  • Stay postive, optimistic, motivated.
  • Find a job (to make money, travel, live).
  • Ignore all the negativism on Facebook, LinkedIn, the Media, politicos & Co.!

People in Aleppo have reason to complain. Also the people hit by the many natural disasters around the world. Or the ones suffering health problems. WE? We do well! We should be very happy and grateful for what we have! Our lively, sunny-spirited daughter has a pacemaker. Other times, elsewhen or -where, she would likely be dead. Okay, okay. I do not live in Hawaii (and now likely will never make it). My wishes are little. I’d simply like a good, decently paid job in aviation (anywhere, anything in Europe). I did not expect it to be taking this long again to find something. The more “luxury” one, I’d like to be able to afford travel again.
But I have the most lovely family I can imagine. I simply cannot complain. I can set goals. Make New Year’s resolutions.

But. I. Can. Not. Complain!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

This year:

  • Hans

    Thank you Hans Gesk for sharing always those hillarious and good-natured posts. I did miss you at ESC16 and love to see you down under!

  • Thank the entire Carri family for being so far and staying so close!
  • Thanks everyone supporting our family business @ CheckIn.com during the rather bumpy start, especially our mapgician Stefan but also Ingrid, Oksana, Martin and all the others for spreading the word! And to all the ones who have registered and taken a look.
    Also, yes, it’s another time we see lots of lip services from companies we expected to be more supportive in the startup-period. Not even supporting us by spreading the word on their own social networks or registering (it’s free) on our website and having a look at what we are doing there.

    Celinne da Costa

    And also especially Jens for his ongoing support managing the servers! Congrats to your own small family again, welcome to Father’s days 24/7/365! We owe you big time!

  • My prayers for everyone who has gone on! I’m sure you’re being missed by your friends and families!
    Special prayers are also with the Jacobs family, going through unusually rough times right now.
  • And finally for the summary, some exceptionally thanks to you Celinne for TheNomadOasis, reminding me daily of my traveling days. And that this world is about people! You’ve been a motivation in dark hours and an inspiration on the brighter side of life!

Sorry to all the friends that I’ve not been in touch with this year!

Me and My Family
Management, Values

Poor Genius

“Our Heads Are Round so our Thoughts Can Change Direction” [Francis Picabia]

As you may know following my blog, I am considered an expert in aviation.

At upcoming Passenger Terminal Conference & Expo, I will speak about the need to dear down the walls to make A-CDM a success. Being it data silos or the ones in the heads of the ones opposing change (aka. change management).

At upcoming Hamburg Aviation Conference, the famous aviation think tank, I will be on stage on our work at CheckIn.com. As an example for pioneering work, changing the status quo: That is it … is it?

I work with airports and airlines and get calls on many projects every day, being asked for advise and “just a little help”. But at the same time, the expenses still exceed the income, not talking about a possible “salary” on our work on CheckIn.com. On my airline startup investment, we get a lot of market research inquiries, but we shall develop and deliver that for free for the chance of a future investment.

It reminds me of the old joke on the social networks about asking for free consulting: “If I wanted to work for free, I’d choose to be a volunteer. Not a freelance.” And while all those callers have a well-paid job, they hide behind their company not being able to pay me, but I sure will get their “business” later. Can’t tell you how often I heard that.

I’ve lately being asked to travel to North America. And to Russia. To help on a project. Payment? Oh, if my help works out we may be able to agree on a consulting contract the next time… You. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me.

As a boy, I loved the biography of the Nobel-price-winner Marie Curie, about whom Wikipedia writes: “She subsisted on her meager resources, suffering from cold winters and occasionally fainting from hunger.” But she did have a dream. And she lived it.

Now it’s time. Not “tomorrow”, not “some day”. I mention on my social networks that I look for a new challenge, paid work. I’m busy all day, work long nights, but that all comes without enough pay, so we dig into our savings – not what I want life to be. Neither my wife, nor my children.

More friends have left our industry this year, not finding decently paid work in our industry. Being seasoned, creative experts in aviation, they now work in other industries paying them their living. If you pay €30K/year for a “manager” position, you get what you pay for.

I keep answering my friends (close and loose) questions, share my experience. Just keep in mind when you ask a freelance for free help, that if you use their time, they have less time to make money and feed their family, their children. And don’t promise “exposure” to “opportunities” that we both know they won’t arise. It might be an idea to not imply that your company doesn’t have money to buy into expertise. You might simply not have asked. Or did you?

Food for Thought
Comments welcome

And I wish everyone happy holidays and a wonderful, prosperous, challenging, healthy and fun 2017.

See you in Hamburg (08-09Feb), Ajaccio (22-24Feb), Amsterdam (14-16Mar) or Belfast (23-25Apr). Or elsewhere.

 

Values

“Our Heads Are Round so our Thoughts Can Change Direction” [Francis Picabia]
"What are the facts? Again and again and again-what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history"--what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!" [Lazarus Long]
“What are the facts? Again and again and again-what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history”–what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!” [Lazarus Long]
IT, Values

10 Years “Shift Happens” – review

“Our Heads Are Round so our Thoughts Can Change Direction” [Francis Picabia]

shifthappensnarratedMy first ever blog post in the new WordPress blog was Shift Happens. That was 10 years ago. Now in honor of it’s 10th anniversary, Karl Fish took a look back on his Blog The Fish Bowl.

The best video is still this one on YouTube and I’d love to find a decent update, but to date, it’s unmatched and I urge you to watch it.

10 years have gone by and still our children don’t learn for their lives, about compassion, tolerance and respect. They don’t learn to apply the rule of three to compare 200g of product X with 800g of product Y. They don’t know how to socially interact without a screen. They can chat for days but not structure their ideas. Crowdfunding, couch surfing, big data and hightech, but they are still asked to use “printed” information for their diplomas, WiFi is not available in many schools. And if you’re poor, the school neither enables you access to all that new high tech. Nobody’s left behind?
Yeah. But they know how to calculate mathematics that their parents left to calculators and for the past 10 years our smartphone app does.

So we don’t produce enough children in “the West”, so population shrinks and more people get older and fewer young will have to look after them. But instead of making our kids smarter, we limp behind the average school in Asia. And the U.S. industry recently published that they depend on their Asian employees for new developments…?

verwandert.deI had a student I made my assistant back in Erfurt. When I left, her fellow colleagues degraded her back to “student” (cooking coffee, assisting their work). She left aviation. A loss to our industry!
Her business uses Blog, Facebook, Social Networks.

thenomadoasisSame for Celinne Da Costa, traveling the world “couch surfing”. Exotic. And I’m asked, how that can work. With smart tech, an online world and a device to write and share the written, with paid-for articles and speaking. And I know more people doing that! Are our kids ready for this?

We set-up CheckIn.com. Us in the middle of nowhere in Braunschweig, Germany. Our mapmagician from Berlin, our server admin in Frankfurt, the algorithmic genie from Texas. Will we ever set up an “office”? I doubt it. But still most (relatively old) managers stick to “workplace”. Even relatively young Marissa Meyer, taking her post at Yahoo ordered an end to ‘remote’ work as all staff are told to be in the office as part of a new era of collaboration. Old thinking. She’s a “role model”? I’ll teach my girls better. I promise!

Karl Fish closes his review pointedly: “In 2006 I was worried that we were preparing students for our past, not their future. In 2016, I still am.”

Food For Thought
Comments and opinions welcome!

Management, Values

Type Talk

“Our Heads Are Round so our Thoughts Can Change Direction” [Francis Picabia]

strangers_and_friends
“There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven’t yet met” [William Butler Yeats]
Years ago, my friend and mentor Richard (yeah, him again) introduced my to “Type Talk”, a book about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, introducing me also to the Keirsey Temperament Sorter. As I am at the crossroads again checking out options for my future what-to-do, I just redid my assessment (see below), though it didn’t change really…

There are online tests for both on the web, which simply identify how your brain works. Not in black&white, there’s gray scale. But dominantly. Generally (according to Myers-Briggs) there are four indicators in the end. Indicators, not “rules”. You are either introverted or extroverted, intuitive or sensing, feeling or thinking, perceptive or judging. I found this understanding very helpful to identify my strength as such and understand that being different, is not a weakness but a different strength.

extro_vs_introvertMany of you know, Yulia is an introvert, where I’m an extrovert. Where it is very easy for me to stand in front of a crowd or meet strangers, this is a real challenge for Yulia. Which is also, why I help her promoting CheckIn.com. That difference in personality is rather easy to grasp. the other differences are more difficult in the beginning.

Intuitive or sensing in a nut shell is about how you gather information. You need to touch them (with your senses) or can you imagine them?
Thinking and feeling are about decision making, being straight-thinking or more intuitive following their “gut feeling”.

Judging and perceptive is not about ruling, but they influence your expression. Where judging types like more that things are clear and settled, perceptive types constantly challenge them.

enfp-aBut then we move on from Myers-Briggs to Keirsey and we step into a different world. In fact, we leave theory behind and come to the practical application. Because the Keirsey Temperament Sorter’s results are observable. Again, there is no black & white, but in many facets certain behavior is dominant. Such as the easily observable extro- vs. introversion.

Before you continue, you might want to do the official test, though that requires (free) registration on Keirsey’s website to get the results. And only the mini-result is free, giving you a general indication (like me, being an idealist “NF”). If you don’t need it for business, I found this a good online source to do the Myers-Briggs test (try to avoid neutral answers), which tells me (again) I’m a “Campaigner”, an ENFP-a. But the strongest, dominating type in me being the extrovert. How surprising ツ And doesn’t that fit with my passion in “Marketing” and challenging the frontiers?

listen_and_learn

What triggered this blog article is a quote by Steven Covey seen on LinkedIn (as so often, not properly referenced to him), which quickly reminded me also of that Peanuts “Great Pumpkin” cartoon by Schulz. Intuitively and being an extrovert, I jumped to it, but at second thought quickly identified it as simply a good example on how extroverts and introverts react to the same extrovert statement. And also, how judging types “believe” strongly in what for them is “settled”, the perceptive types do question the Great Pumpkin. Or Life, the Universe and Everything.

An introvert listens by nature. So Yeats was an extrovert and just expressed the typical extroverts view…

Food for Thought
Comments welcome!

And do me the favor and click on the (new) heart ♥ below the article if you liked it. It’s not linked anywhere but local for me to know the topics that my readers prefer ツ

Values

The +50 = Useless Myth

“Our Heads Are Round so our Thoughts Can Change Direction” [Francis Picabia]

Okay. So I turned 50 this year. And aside a major C-Check that will make me take additives for lost hardware and discuss health issues with friends and strangers alike? Aside being a dirty old man? Am I useless?

Why should I be?

EinsteinI still will likely work another 15 years at minimum – maybe 20 or more! Many retirees are still fit to work and get bored if they don’t. The majority of students taking up their first new job will be with the company less than five years in the end. Inexperienced and with low salaries companies invest heavily to train them on the jobs they do (or risk to invest into their mistakes). Whereas you can hire experienced people who know their jobs, make less (costly) mistakes and who have a “knowing” touch, usually good for building trust with new customers or prospects.

Not the U.S. ... China. But this graphs looks similar in any "modern" society
Not the U.S. … China. But this graphs looks similar in any “modern” society

Now we also have less and less young people entering the market here in Europe, as well as the U.S. Politicians and commercial bodies paint the picture of lack of junior employees. At the same time, they send their experienced workers home at relatively young age. Or disqualify them as employees as “too expensive” or “less resilient”. It’s the same issue about the demand of an “academic degree” for all employees. Misjudging and neglecting the value of “practical experience”. And yes, that also goes to you Marisa Meyer, whereas I also enjoy similar such personal experience with Lufthansa Group…

Mayer-Paltrow

What really bugs me about this, is that even renowned entrepreneurs and investors often disqualify older entrepreneurs from their support activities, very often, activities address “young professionals”, “under 30” and enjoy other such limitations. The same is true in talks, where “older” entrepreneurs are faced with far higher “expectations” and demands and still don’t get the investment but “hip” high risk investments by teams without any professional experience do. I believe the time to disqualify experience or “gray hair” are over soon. If companies look for good people, they will have to pay more for the few “young professionals” left, who proof to be less loyal and require more mistakes to become experienced. And I know of too many experienced people as well as honor students leaving “bad paid” aviation or not even interested to start in it, as motivation and loyalty are no one-way-street and other industries simply proof more attractive to them than ours.

German Birthrate Image by Welt.de
German Birthrate Image: Welt.de

Oh… And didn’t I just hear Germany became Champion again? In the f#%@ing lowest birth rate in the world!!! Well, that does confirm my own experience about “political child support” by our self-proclaimed “Christian-Democratic Union” led by our Chancellor Merkel. And no, I do not want to talk about “atomic exit”, Greece or “lobbyism” in Germany today. We just have a family tax system that supports DINKs (double income – no kids), but increasingly forces single parents into poverty. With the demographic results shown. So what was that again about 50+? Im now beyond 50. And happy 😀

Food for Thought
Comments welcome
IT, Values

Keeping Face

“Our Heads Are Round so our Thoughts Can Change Direction” [Francis Picabia]

changeflightsJust screening all those wisdoms my friends keep sharing on LinkedIn and Facebook, here one from own experience…

People do not want to admit mistakes.

Developing online booking tools back in the 90s, when no-one (especially not Amadeus, Sabre, etc) believed in it, I learned that lesson good: Business travelers wanted to make the bookings with their travel department. But they wanted to CHANGE the booking themselves (online). Asked, why that is, it was simply that they considered the need to change a booking a “mistake”. No matter if the change was enforced to them. It also showed how important it was to them to keep face with their travel arrangers.

Food for Thought
 Comments welcome