A Comedy of Process Errors

Fair warning - there are swears in this, of the most offensive kind

It’s funny, but I’m not laughing.

I have been strapped in this seat for over an hour. It’s warm, I’m thirsty and tired. Yes, I am on a plane and there is a delay to our departure.

When process gaps bear real consequences for people, it can manifest in a pressure cooker that will only explode in the wrong faces. Letting gaps continue, allowing (sometimes expecting) your front facing teams to create and manage workarounds just bandaids the situation and bandaids are not robust and are prone to peeling off when things get heated.

Here I am, in one of those perfectly illustrated situations. I wish I could laugh at it, but, well, let me outline it.

Before I go into this, I am not an aviation specialist, so some of my findings could be naive - in which case, the airline needs to manage their comms to me as their customer much better, to help me understand.

The plane is almost full, and because of this, and the continuing creep of the tolerance of carry on luggage sizes, passengers were implored to surrender their bags to the hold before boarding. Those little (ish) wheelie cases were reluctantly taken to the desk, so there was more room inside the plane.

• issue number one: if the plane is full, there should be room for everyone to have their hand luggage allocation on board. The tolerance levels on luggage size should be kept in check and enforced with more rigour. Telling someone at point of sale they can have luggage of X size onboard, then asking them in the airport to add time to their journey by having to wait for baggage at the other end is super annoying

Seemingly, in this situation, ground staff have been trained to repeat the message: ‘Passengers are encouraged to bring their larger carry on items forward to be placed in the hold. If you do this, it will enable us to ensure that the flight takes off on time, with no delays’. Lovely! They have eloquently highlighted the positive. If they’d said ‘Please do this or we risk the flight taking off late’ it may have sounded like a threat, so this was nicely phrased. It was repeated five times, with authority in the voice, and many passengers complied.

We’re flying to Amsterdam, a big central hub where people fly in only to transfer to another flight, sometimes with tight turnarounds - nobody wants this plane to be late so they are all happy to help (not me, I want to get off and get home in record time, thanks)

• issue number two: too many people complied, and nobody thought about the possible consequence. When we had been on the plane more than 30 minutes, the luggage was still not fully loaded into the hold. There were gaping spaces in the onboard overhead bins. The messaging hit too hard and nobody thought it through. Loading pushed us to be sitting at the gate 25 minutes after expected take off time

Now, in my opinion, this is OK really. 25 minutes is half the expected flight time, but even so, not a huge blow to everyone’s day. However, it did make me muse about their governance. Sadly, what came next was unthinkable.

When I came down the stairs to the umbilical that brought us to the aircraft, I noticed there was a moment of choice. We had to turn right, but there was a left option down a corridor. It was unsigned and unmanned.

Obviously, to me, the plane was to my right, I know what an umbilical walkway looks like, and everyone else was headed in that direction too, so that was a clear giveaway.

Unfortunately, someone else missed those flags.

About 20 minutes after we’d heard that the bags were now all loaded, we still hadn’t taken off (now 45 minutes late). Then the captain spoke to us once more to say that one passenger had not got on the plane, but their luggage was loaded so they were trying to find the luggage and remove it.

With audible sighs from all on the plane, we settled down for a longer wait, everyone furiously typing on phones, no doubt to update loved ones, taxi drivers, bosses on the situation.

After another 15 minutes (a whole hour after expected take off), we were still at the gate when the captain’s channel was opened and we heard ‘Um. Um. Well’. It was explained to us, by a captain who was clearly tearing their hair out by this point, that they had made some calls to ground crew and found out that the passenger who had not got on the plane had turned left at the bottom of the stairs which momentarily confused me, missed the umbilical and headed off in another direction, only to be found in the arrivals hall.

• issue number 3. Perhaps some signage, or secure door or barrier for the avoidance of doubt at the bottom of the stairs?

• issue number 4. You have the person. You are struggling to find the bag. Perhaps put the person on the plane, as originally intended, instead of spending all this time scrambling about in a bursting full hold for one particular suitcase

As much as I will consider that this was a more public-friendly version of the story than reality, as much as I don’t know their full reasoning for it, as much as I can imagine putting the person on the plane could have caused issues with all these annoyed people facing them, what was lacking in this case was also:

• issue number 5. Give us some damn water! It’s warm, we’re all annoyed, you could avoid complaints and bad NPS reviews later by just making us a little more comfortable. It’d be an investment

What happened was the five children under the age of 8 in the cabin all started to get frustrated, and once one finally became unconsolable, even by Peppa Pig, and broke their silence, they triggered the rest. Then the adults, with their built in anxiety sensors raised when a kid is in peril, all started to get more antsy, to the point the person behind me started a loud rant about how it was ‘fucking disgraceful’ and called the airline ‘a bunch of cunts’. In front of many of the kids.

Luckily, the parents didn’t hear this (over the kids’ escalating cries), but I am prepped and ready to tell this person to shut the hell up, and considering how to deal with the expected aggressive response.

We just got notice that we’re about to pushback, so I will end and relax. But in summary, to apply to process and customer journey development:

• scenario test for ‘what ifs’

• cookie cutter processes don’t fit a customer journey. Cater for customers in terms specific to your situation; in this case, people who are tired, anxious, away from home, or don’t speak your language; make sure they can’t follow the wrong path (obviously be differently abled, pregnant or neurodivergent friendly too)

• crunch the numbers - how many bags did they actually need to put in the hold? Does the bag size tolerance need to be reviewed?

• manage the messaging - what do customers need to understand?

• manage a potential escalation or complaint before it happens by empathising with your customers and proactively doing something to bring them more comfort

We’re finally moving. I’m definitely having wine when I get home.