Airlines Prepared for What Scenarios?

 The Airlines have been in the news as flying has become a mess of delays and cancellations. Last week a headline in the Washington Post caught my attention: “What $50 billion in Taxpayer Aid for Airlines Did Not Fix”  an August 2nd opinion piece by Bill Saporito  (an editor at large at Inc. magazine). (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/airlines-cancellations-delays-50-billion/ 

The article asks a lot of questions about why airline service has declined so badly, especially since $50 billion of pandemic support was provided by the Federal Government to assist the industry. One of the key questions Saporito asks is what were airlines doing to prepare to be strategically better at providing for their customers. Its important given they had significant government financial support during the COVID pandemic. As the article points out there have been forces working the flight industry for awhile, including pilot shortages from retirement, tougher pilot training standards, and aging aircraft. 

This question got me wondering what kind of strategic planning the airlines have been doing over the past few years. Scenario planning looks to get information on possible futures not only by using people at the top of the leadership chain but to also include people from outside that small realm. There is more information about possible futures when a wide net is cast to involve key stake holders and people from outside the normal realm of the executive team. It calls for looking at broad trends in the social and political order. Scenario planning sessions involve collaborating with all types of people who might have key insight on the coming future and forces shaping the industry:

• Business class customers from different business sectors;
• Family travelers, including a mother or two with multiple children;
• Customer service agents who handle actual complaints;
• Key vendors with some of their people who actually deliver some of the vendor services;
• Other organizations and agencies which have some skin in the flight game;
• People doing the operational work including flight attendants, pilots; mechanics, ground crew, ticket agents;
• Hospitality providers from tourist sectors the airlines regularly serve.

Who would you invite to an airline’s strategic planning sessions? What viewpoints and what forces on the economy and social realm might be missed by an airline or by the industry? 

Interested in a book about collaborative planning, check out:

Using Scenarios: Scenario Planning for Improving Organizations by Thomas J. Chermack. https://bookshop.org/a/85951/9781523092888

The Collaboratory Edited by Katrin Muff.

 My Bookshop

Interesting things I read about this week which made me think about the future:

Education:  Voters overwhelmingly reject Maine school construction project. From Channel 8, WMTW, August 10, 2022. 

The special referendum on Tuesday asked voters in those towns if they wanted to allow RSU 4 to issue bonds or notes for an amount not to exceed $31,687,216. The final vote total between the three towns was 219 in favor and 2,209 opposed. That is roughly 91% of votes against the project.

Health Care: Employees are increasingly on the hook for their medical costs. 

By Caitlin Owens, Axios. 

Interesting stats on employer/employee costs. 

https://apple.news/AITknF51LRbKK3oF8smdgPA

Health Care: Healthcare costs are making America sick

Med City News, by Court Brower, May 1, 2022.  

Knowing that nearly 1 in 5 Americans have medical debt (about 18%, according to a study published in JAMA) and other troubling statistics do not help people trust they can afford care, and rightfully so. Medical debt is the single largest cause of bankruptcy in America, according to the National Consumer Law Center.

There are some encouraging statistics, too, for patients who have faced medical problems in the past 12 months:

49% have checked with a doctor’s office about the cost a visit beforehand. 

34% shopped around to find the best price for a medical service. 

Nearly 1 in 4 (22%) negotiated with a provider to get a lower price before receiving services. 

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that Millennials are leading the charge in placing a greater weight on discussions about prescription prices and lower-cost alternatives. They’re more proactive in doing this than older patients.

https://apple.news/AxCdRq1mTQgik6UpQnCxZVg

Health Care: From Yahoo News, August 2, 2022. The proportion of the US population with no health insurance in the United States reached a new low in early 2022 at eight percent, President Joe Biden's administration said Tuesday. The rate of uninsured people began to fall sharply after the Affordable Care Act came into effect in 2014.

https://news.yahoo.com/percent-americans-without-health-coverage-222035341.html

Agriculture: Worsening Conditions Will Force Out People Out of Farming, Industry Warns.  Evening Standard by Gemma Bradley, August 10. 2022

Droughts and rising costs due to inflation will “force people out of farming”, and workers need to “talk to each other” if struggling, farmers have said.

British farmers have detailed the difficulties caused by drought, which has forced an earlier harvest and will leave them struggling to store and sell goods.

This comes as a four-day amber warning for extreme heat in parts of England is due to come into effect from Thursday, with temperatures set to climb to 36C in some places.

Andrew Francis, 55, from Breckland, Norfolk, who grows root vegetables and combinable crops, detailed the difficulties caused by early harvesting after the grain season only had 35% of its long-term average rainfall.

https://apple.news/AxCdRq1mTQgik6UpQnCxZVg

What news items caused you to think about the future? Who has unique perspectives on the unpredictable forces in your world?

May your day be filled with creativity and collaboration,

Van