Tag: service recovery

OM in the News: Airlines and the Winter Storms

Workers at Boston's Logan Airport faced a mountain of snow last week
Workers at Boston’s Logan Airport faced a mountain of snow last week

As we discuss in the Global Company Profile on Delta Airlines that opens Chapter 15, airlines have made rapid improvement in storm recovery. Using new tricks, techniques and conservative strategies to position airplanes and employees before storms hit, flights can resume quickly as soon as runways clear. The change is a reaction to stiffer regulations, including stronger rules on pilot rest, and customer outrage on tarmac delays.

New software in use at several big airlines reschedules crews in minutes, sparing dispatchers hours of manual puzzle-solving, reports The Wall Street Journal (Feb.5, 2015). Last week, United got planes back into its Newark, N.J., hub and other Northeast airports on Tuesday night and was back at full strength by Wednesday afternoon, using only 11 reserve pilots. In past storms, that number would have been in the hundreds. The airline keeps 15-18% of its 10,000 pilots on reserve duty to fill in when pilots get sick or delays throw off schedules. United, like other airlines, sometimes ran out of reserve pilots and flights would have to be canceled days later in sunny weather.

United has long used software to reschedule planes, then given dispatchers the task of manually finding available crews. But this time, a new computer program rescheduled pilots sidelined by snow. “That optimization is so beautiful,” says United’s VP. “Last year, we had multiple events where the recovery dragged on for days.”

Airlines say tarmac-delay rules, where the government imposes big penalties on carriers for leaving passengers marooned on grounded airplanes, have forced them to avoid the risk of flying close to the storm. Shutting down early turns out to be better for passengers and airlines. Fewer passengers get stranded at airports because they never start trips or know ahead of time they won’t get home so they avoid the airport. United actually ferried 7 planes empty into Newark Tuesday afternoon so they’d be ready for early-morning departures Wednesday. By 4 p.m. Wednesday Boston was back to normal.

Classroom discussion questions:

1. Why is the airline operations center so critical during weather disruptions?

2. What does optimization software do for the airlines?

Teaching Tip: What Can You Expect From Your Hotel?

When you are teaching  TQM in services (Ch.6), you might ask your students to consider how they would rate the quality of hotels they have stayed at. We write in the chapter about the intangible differences between products (hotels) and the intangible expectations customers have of these products. Certainly, we all have lower expectations of service quality when we stay at a Motel 8 versus when we are guests at a Ritz Carlton or Four Seasons. (See in our video case study “Quality at the Ritz”).

I bring this up because my family and I  just returned from our big vacation of the summer– a 3-night stay at what some claim to be the premier resort hotel in the Caribbean. The “product” was really on the  expensive side, so our expectations ran high. World class facilities, food, service, and activities were all on the list.  The people/services were extraordinary. Every single employee we came in contact with was gracious, smiling, helpful, and courteous.

But one of the reasons we came in contact with so many hotel staffers was that so many things went wrong with the tangibles. My wife counted over a dozen repair people (all warm and friendly) in our rooms during the 3 days– yet the problems kept coming. First the broken shower head was replaced. Then a deadbolt that locked my 13-year-old in and us out (which had to be drilled out). Then no sound on the TV, as well as a missing remote. To boot, the sink was dirty (brown) when we arrived. But the real issue was the unflushable toilet! After 4 visits to first replace the insides, then to repair it over and over, the toilet still ran all night long. I worked on it myself a few times, then gave up and put 4 towels and a bathrobe over it to mask the noise.

How did the manager handle service recovery? The LEARN routine was followed perfectly, and a discount was even applied. But would we return to a hotel that had such problems? Very doubtful.