David Hauser

We often hear about how tough the airline industry is and how so many of the large U.S. carriers struggle with everything from union issues to a drop in travel. However, the more I fly, the more it is clear to me that the worst airlines might in fact be impacted by all those issues, but what they really struggle with is a culture of mediocrity, which creates inefficient and ineffective processes.

What finally convinced me was what should have been a simple non-stop flight from Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) to Boston Logan (BOS). I was scheduled to leave at 8:10am Saturday morning, but the night before as I had finished meetings early, I tried to take a late flight out of Dallas, which was nowhere near full. However, instead of putting me on this flight and filling a seat for a reasonable price, AA would only put me on $1000, even three hours before it was scheduled to leave (and not full). I went to sleep thinking, “That’s kind of silly, I would have paid a little more to change—maybe not $1000, but a reasonable amount. And the seat was available so it would have been efficient for them to fill it, and it would’ve made me a happy customer.”

At 4:23am on Saturday morning, I got a call from an automated AA system saying my flight was cancelled, and I would have to fly through Washington, DC, back to Boston. Half-asleep, I pressed a button to talk to an operator, and was informed my flight was cancelled because of “equipment failure.” Luckily, I was able to get on a 6:40am flight non-stop to Boston, but I had little time to get ready and get to the airport. So I got dressed, packed, and made my way downstairs to get a cab to the airport, 30 minutes away.

As both an entrepreneur and unhappy traveler, at this point, the questions start to pop up in my head:

• Why not put a passenger on an empty flight a few hours before it is set to take off, maybe even make $150-250 extra? If the seat’s just going to remain empty anyways, it’s a good move.
• Why schedule two daily flights at 6:40am and 8:10am, rather than splitting the difference and running just one?

The last question was answered for me when I got on the plane. One of the flight attendants was talking to a passenger and said that almost every day AA will cancel one of the two morning flights depending on which is “less empty.” The interesting thing is the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) specifically forbids airlines from doing this— by law, they must fly scheduled routes unless there is something called “equipment failure.” So what does AA do? They file “equipment failure” each time they cancel a morning flight with fewer passengers.

The aforementioned scheme does not work well for anyone, American Airlines, employees (flight attendants) and passengers (me). For the flight attendant who told us about the “equipment failure” scheme, it means that she’s got to drive to DFW wondering which route she’ll be flying, and if she’ll get paid for both flights, or if AA will cancel one and she’ll take home less pay. For passengers such as myself, we get the inconvenience of being held at the mercy of AA and other airlines that use deceptive practices, flout the FAA, and basically just do whatever they want.

This is all just a perfect example of the inefficiencies built into the airline industry, and the culture of mediocrity by everyone in it. End result? The airline industry lost many billions of dollars last year, flight attendants are not happy, passengers are not happy, and flights fly mostly empty. How is it possible in a world where there is so much innovation that we’ve settled for this poor excuse for an airline industry?