In spite of what my sister says, I’m not a terribly girly girl.  Even so, every great now and then, I’ll go do a complete Girl Day. I’ll get my hair and nails done, maybe a massage, whatever. I walk in the door and pretend I’m Elizabeth Taylor. (The reference dates me, I know. But I just don’t think there’s any glamor like old Hollywood glamor.)  I have very clear expectations about what I want from those rare days:  a comfy chair, a raspberry cosmo, pleasant fragrances and quiet.  Selling anything involves a tremendous amount of talking; so, when I’m unwinding, I covet silence.  If I don’t get what I expect (like the time I ended up with magenta hair – not a good look), I expect an adjustment to my bill or I may just not go back to that salon.

When I go out to eat, I expect good service, good food, a pleasant environment and a predictable price.  If my expectations are not met, I may reduce the tip, I may complain (though probably not), or, again, I may just not go back.

When I fly commercially, I should be able to expect someone to greet me at the ticket counter, smooth movement through security, orderly enplaning and deplaning, reasonably priced refreshments or the ability to supply my own, on-time departures and arrivals, and a pleasant environment.  What I get is: self check-in at a kiosk, security hassles with my coat, shoes, and laptop case, 45 minutes hanging around at the gate, overpriced food and beverages, enplaning and deplaning hassles (you know all those people who just stand in the aisle for no apparent reason), tension on the aircraft with screaming children or obnoxious passengers, etc. That’s really kind of sad, isn’t it?  I expect to be annoyed and tired by the time I reach my destination.  If I don’t like my experience on any given airline, I’m pretty much out of luck, though, right?  They’re all basically the same, offering very little positive customer service, 80% on-time reliability, and no recourse for those made miserable by disruptive passengers (unless the carrier wants to be lambasted on Twitter or online news outlets).

So, here’s my question to you: what do you want?  We’re not talking operational issues here, just customer experience.  If you could design an airline from tip to grip, what would you do?  What would your expectations be and how would you meet them?

Think on that and let me know.  I’ll be waiting right here, sipping a cosmo.

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People regularly quiz us about FAA and self-imposed safety regulations, trying to define and understand them. And, now and then, they ask us to bend the rules “just a little bit” to accommodate an extra hour in their schedules or an extra couple of hundred pounds of payload.  With an eight ton aircraft, what’s a couple hundred pounds between friends?   After all, it won’t make much difference, right?  I am surprised at how often they are surprised when we say no.  Statistically, flying may be safer than driving, but bending the rules “just a little bit” isn’t how it stays that way.  We stick to the rules because they are there to keep us, our aircraft, our crew, our passengers and the people on the ground safe.  Bottom line – the cost of being wrong is just too high.

So, last night, when I was watching the news and I heard an adorable little exchange between a child in the air traffic control tower at New York’s JFK Airport and a JetBlue airliner full of passengers, I was absolutely dumbstruck, which you know is quite a feat if we’ve ever met.  Hundreds of people’s lives were involved in that little exchange between a child who had gone to work with a parent and an airliner in an ACTIVE FLIGHT!!!

The Associated Press’ Joan Lowy wrote about this incident and others that shine a rather harsh light on Air Traffic Control and raises the question: Who’s watching the watchers?

In the case of Tiny Tyke ATC, the FAA has suspended both the controller and his supervisor pending an investigation, and the NTSB is  holding a forum this spring to discuss pilot and air traffic controller professionalism.  Do I think that the aircraft was in danger?  No, the licensed controller was right there and the child was clearly repeating only what he was told to say.  Now, do I think that it was an instance of colossally poor judgement?  Absolutely.  And, in this industry, more than in many, instances of colossally poor judgement cannot be ignored.  The costs are simply too high.

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In yesterday’s Conversational Currency, our good friend and provocative thinker, Dan Robles, shares some powerful insights as to how Social Media can be used to allow people in large urban areas to share the cost of big-ticket items they don’t need regularly, specifically cars.  The ZipCar company he cites is a great illustration of how this can work.  Now, let’s stretch our minds a bit and put that concept into a private aviation setting.  Aircraft used on the ZipCar model really is using Social Power by the Hour.

Social Media Power By The Hour

Making human knowledge and intentions tangible in a market place opens up the possibility of a whole new class of business plans.  We call this Social Power by the Hour.

A Social Trifecta

1. Obviously, Social Media is powerful.

2. Fractional ownership or rental of assets is an emerging trend in our environmentally, geographically, and monetarily constrained economy.

3.Vendor Relationship Management (Doc Searles) promises to change the shape of traditional advertising in the future.

What if we combined all three?

ZipCar is an excellent example of the fractional membership for automobile transportation. There are many advantages but also huge drawbacks. $7.00 per hour is a lot to add to a casual lunch at a sidewalk café or any social experience.   Then there are all the lost options like the one-way-trip, guaranteed availability, all those rules and regulations.  So, it’s pay now or pay later.

Social memberships

What if your friends in the social network also had ZipCar memberships and the scheduling were interchangeable?  Suppose you could find a ZipCar anywhere and park one anywhere?

Now, enter the Vendor of goods and service. What if the Vendor were to subsidize the cost of the ZipCar to bring 4 people into the restaurant, club, or event?  What if amusement parks, zoos and art exhibitions helped pay for full car-loads of friends to drive themselves to events?

The Vetting Mechanism:

What if the real social value of the ZipCar could be compared to car ownership for each intended trip?  How would this influence your decision to drive, plan, or combine events into your user experience?  What if Vendors could influence that cost to drive incentives?

Power By The Hour Game

The Above schematic is What I’ll Call the Social Media Power by the Hour Game. Everyone is part of the same social network and can talk to each other.  Each Box represents a player that can influence the cost of the power by the hour. The True Value Calculator keeps score by comparing each transaction value to the equivalent car-ownership or public transportation value.

Set your filters and wait for the proposition…

Instead of scheduling, everyone (including passengers, vendors, social network) start by setting a bunch of filters that represent their approximate intentions.  The system compares the intentions with ZipCar locations and compares it to the True Value Calculator.  When a suitable transaction is in play, all the players are notified.

Once the game starts and enough people play, statistically, there should be ZipCars distributed proportionally around the city and all vendors will be managing their marketing campaign with 100% ROI on their impressions.  The system will become a self optimizing money game.

A fully convertible currency

At first, this may seem like an application to sell ZipCar memberships, but actually, it is selling odds and entrepreneurs are placing bets.  The ZipCar is simply a mechanical device that converts social currency into money.

A few Scenarios:

Scenario 1: When a vendor notices a group of friends going to the mall, they can pay for part of the ZipCar with a lunch coupon.

Scenario 2: Amusement park or event promoter can see when a family has no plans and can offer a free ZipCar to them

Scenario 3:  The bigger your social network, the cheaper it becomes for you to drive a car

Scenario 4: Vendors can bid for the ZipCar audience with Packages of discounts, coupons and also earn impressions and trust.

Scenario 5: Friends can see what other friends are doing and can jump in the same ZipCar

Scenario 6: ZipCars can be parked densely at events since you will not necessarily leave in the same car that you came in.

Scenario 7: As soon as you park, the zip car becomes available for someone else.  As soon as you need one, there is a high probability one is parked close by.

Scenario 6: ZipCar options can be traded like currency to buy things on, say, Craigslist

And many many many more……..

End result: The bigger your social network, the cheaper your Power By the Hour.  The bigger the social network, the more effective WOM marketing becomes.  The bigger the social network, the more options are available to users.   The greater the social network, the more SOCIAL VALUE a ZipCar membership will have in comparison to independent car ownership. The bigger the social network, the more social currency can trade hands as the Dollar fails.

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I read this article in the Chicago Tribune, Another East Coast storm grounds planes, although cancellations likely fewer than prior storm, and it made me glad that I’m not working at the ticket counter anymore. 

It was 14 March 1993 and I was working in Lexington, KY.  I remember the date because our flights were all full or oversold due to the sold out SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament, held that year at Rupp Arena downtown.  We all anticipated a challenging Sunday with lots of passengers and bags.  What we did not anticipate was the Storm of the Century.  Because of the treacherous roads, most of our agents couldn’t even get to work that day; so, if I remember correctly, about seven of us worked from 5:30 in the morning until about 11 PM, working flight after flight with the occasional snowball fight in between. Because of conditions at the hubs, most other airlines were grounded. Nashville was operational; so, we loaded up our little Jetstreams and off they went, mostly on time. 

On another day, tornadoes were in the area.  The passengers were already on the aircraft when a tornado was actually spotted.  Everyone deplaned and went to secure areas inside.  One passenger complained the whole way in about missing her connection.  In the list of our priorities, keeping her from harm came before making her connection.

One afternoon, we were about three minutes late pushing off the gate.  The aircraft went out to the taxiway, then came right back to the gate.  It seemed that a small aircraft was on final approach and was unable to extend their landing gear.  They were coming in gear up, which meant that, at best, they’d slide along the runway, closing it for a period of time.  That is what actually happened.  The aircraft was severely damaged, but no one was hurt.  The runway was closed for two or three hours.  One passenger complained loudly that if we had left on-time, they would not have been help up be this delay.  The truth of the matter is, that three minutes made no difference.  The airport was already preparing for this emergency arrival. 

I often talk about how much less stressful and efficient travel is on a private aircraft as opposed to an airliner, and, in  most cases, that holds true.  However, snow and ice hold the same problems for a Gulfstream wing that they hold for an Airbus wing.  Runway closures park Cirrus SR-22s as surely as it does Boeing 747s.

Delays and cancellations because of field conditions or weather are almost as much a pain for airline employees as they are for stranded passengers.  There is absolutely no way the agents can fix the situations, either.  From behind the counter, we always understood the frustration of the passengers who had somewhere they needed to be.  They often saw the gate or ticket agent as the impediment between them and their final destination.  The natural reaction in a situation like that is to try to remove the impediment.  However, verbally attacking or insulting the agent doesn’t work.  In fact, it is likely to completely shut down an agent who might otherwise have helped you.

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Way back on October 16, Allen Howell wondered if Social Media would replace or simply complement face-to-face meetings.  The topice has generated a tremendous response which continues even now, months later.  Here’s what you had to say:

Social Media as a Precursor to Face to Face

Chris Stompolos, Principal and Producer at Rolling Boulder Films, LLC

“Business will always, and still does come down to people knowing people, trusting people, collaborating with people. I think social networking platforms has made things considerably easier to break the ice, but when it comes to closing the deal, its always so much of a nicer way to do business sitting across from someone. Bottom line really: You want to do business with people you trust and like.”

Gary Copher, Regional Leader at Primerica Financial Services

“I may be able to start the relationship building process on a social media site, but rest assured, a client is not going to sign over their multi million dollar investment portfolio to me based on a few Facebook chats, no matter how much they like me. … I find social media to be a valuable tool in the networking process.”

Khoushik K, Business Development Executive at UnitForce Technologies

“Social or Professional networking sites help you to extend your reach & eliminates the geographical barriers. …it cannot replace the trust & comfort that is intrinsically built in case of a Face-to-Face meet because humans are tuned to trust / believe a person he/she has met in-person.”

Bright Ibeawuchi, Director at Business Aviation Network

“Social networks in their current state will not replace face to face communications. Not even the most sophisticated video conference system can match the tactical feel of a handshake and eye to eye contact.”

Nazmi Sankary, Regional Marketing Manager at Hadid International Services

“I believe that social media has affected our life patterns a lot but it can’t replace face to face contact at all specially for who prefers to read others by looking at thier eyes!”

Social Media as a Complement to Face to Face

Rusty Keighron, Insurance Practice Leader at Docstar

“FB also enhances FTF communication. Just returned from a trade show where there were folks I needed to see who are FB friends but weren’t in the exhibit hall. By sending them FB reminders that I was there, I was able to see them and make a FTF contact that would otherwise have been left to chance (or not have happened at all).”

Anthony Kirlew, Social Meadia Marketing Strategist, Author, Speaker

“The role of Social Media as a marketing tool is to increase the company’s outreach and brand awareness. It is a complement to an online marketing strategy, but its goal is to make a connection with the intention of moving to an offline engagement where business can be conducted.”

Pawel Rzeczkowski, Experienced Finance Professional

“Social networking will not replace the need for personal contact but it will augment it resulting in lower business travel frequency. Once the contact is established you will need less face to face contact to sustain the relationship. But at the same time you will be able to manage more contacts. Not sure if it will be net a gain or loss or wash on travel.”

Charlie Davenport, Senior Recruiter at Dampier Recruiting Associates

“Social media lets us know when the person landed, when they got off the plane, when they were approaching the baggage claim, when they left the rest room, when they first saw their bag, when they first realized it wasn’t their bag, when the got done lol’ing, and on and on.. but as noted in the article linked to this discussion, social media will never replace the face to face.”

Mercedes Soria, Development Channel Manager at Deloitte

“Completely agree, social media has replaced much face-to-face communication but it is not the end-all of face-to-face meetings. People are still people and 80% of communication is body language which gets lost in social media types of communication. … Social media has its place specially for brand awareness, marketing but it needs to be proceeded by well thought planning efforts. It is just one more tool out there for Marketing (yourself or your business) and it should be treated as such.”

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This has got to be one of my favorite recent airline stories – Airlines’ On-Time Arrival Performance Best Since 2003.  Since 12 February, news outlets all over the country have carried the story and airlines all over the country are nearly breaking their arms patting themselves on the back.  Here’s the key word in all of that, though: arrival.  Nobody is getting all excited, crowing about on-time departure statistics.  Now why is that?

Flights still aren’t leaving on time and the space-time continuum seems to be intact; so, what accounts for the better performance?  On-time arrival numbers are up because block times have been padded with additional time.  As noted by Scott McCartney in the Wall Street Journal on 7 February: “Delta Air Lines Flight 715 from New York to Los Angeles now takes more than seven hours to fly across the country, according to the airline’s March schedule. That’s an hour longer than the same flight in the same type of aircraft took in 1996. A Phoenix-Las Vegas flight at Southwest Airlines that used to be scheduled at 60 minutes now gets 80 minutes. What was once a two-hour American Airlines trip from Chicago to Newark, N.J., now is two-and-a-half hours, according to the airline’s schedule.”

Aha!  The extra time wasn’t squeezed from the space-time continuum, it was squeezed from you!

Let’s add this up, shall we?  Your round-trip ticket on American Airlines between Chicago and Newark costs you $735.40.  Your one checked bag costs you another $50, round trip.  Estimating that you make $50 per hour (and that’s being WAY on the safe side), the increased flight time costs you $50.  Increased time to get through security costs you $100.  Now, let’s take that further.  Let’s say you live in Wheaton, Illinois, and the drive to Chicago’s O’Hare airport takes you at least 45 minutes, but you can get to the DuPage County Airport in only 20 minutes.  In terms of the value of your time, you’ve just spent another $42.  Add another $31 for parking in a main parking lot at O’Hare and the total for your travel is at $1008.40. Add additional meal, room, parking and wasted productive time costs if your meeting schedule requires that you stay the night. Now, add the aggravation factors: the toddler in 14B having a two-hour temper tantrum; for aisle seat passengers, the galley cart bumping your knees and getting up every 15 minutes to let your row mates up to use the lavatory; for window seat passengers, losing half of your seat to the person next to you who may not fit into their own; waiting to deplane; waiting for baggage; waiting for a taxi.  Multiply the aggravation factor by the number of days in a year you spend traveling.  How’s your blood pressure doing?  Mine is up and I’m just writing about it – you’re the one sitting in the seat.

Let’s compare this “improved performance” with business aircraft performance.  Arrive at the smaller airport of your choice 15 minutes prior to departure.  Park your car for no charge.  Walk directly to your aircraft and leave immediately. Barring air traffic and weather delays, the aircraft leaves when you tell it to; so, the departure is always on-time. Upon arrival, walk directly from your aircraft to an awaiting taxi or limo.  Today’s planning software is more accurate than ever; so, you’re arrival is always on-time.  Your fellow travelers are the ones you chose – no tantrums, no seat sharing.  Within federal guidelines, the length of stay is what you chose – no unnecessary wasted time or room and meal costs.  Now, how’s your blood pressure doing?

Does aircraft charter always make sense?  Not by a long shot.  But is it always the spoiled executive perk that many would have you believe?  Not by a longer shot.

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Thursday was an ugly day in the skies.  Even if the weather was severe clear, ugly things happened in both general aviation and in air mass-transit.

By now, you’ve heard that Joseph A. Stack, III, of Austin, Texas, reportedly set fire to his home before going to the airport, climbing into his aircraft and flying it into an office building where there were IRS offices.  We all get sideways about taxes and how The Man is somehow sticking it to us.  And maybe He is, but surely climbing into an aircraft and crashing into a building full of innocent people is not the best way to handle that kind of frustration. The New York Times says that the event is not being treated like a terrorist attack.  I suppose that’s fair, given that his purpose wasn’t to terrorize anyone, just to murder them, regardless of their contribution or lack thereof to his complaint.  It’s unfortunate that he chose to take this action and it’s unfortunate that he chose to use his aircraft to do it.

You’ve also heard about the diversion of United flight 741 into Salt Lake City, Utah, after a flight attendant found a threatening note in the aircraft galley.  Passengers and crew were deplaned and detained as the FBI interviewed everyone to find the note’s origin.  When I worked at the airport, people standing at the ticket counter would sometimes start to joke about bombs and weapons.  I would have to cut them off and remind them that what they were saying was not a joke to airport security and that they could be detained and possibly even charged for what amounted to talking just to fill a silence.  It wasn’t funny then  and it isn’t funny now.  Remember, airline and security employees are required to take those threats seriously and interfering with a flight is a felony, a federal one.

Days like Thursday are disheartening to those of us who love aviation.  We work to create, sustain and grow aviation companies that serve our communities and economies, knowing that the old joke is true: the way to have a million dollars in aviation is to start with two million.  We’re not going to get rich, but we’re going to spend our careers in a field that we love and it hurts us all when our industry is tarnished.

So, let’s polish it up a little.  Be an advocate for aviation.  In the face of all of the bad reports, share your good ones here.  To quote one of our industry’s favorite (if a little over-quoted) movies: “Talk to me, Goose.”

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On 23 January, I published a blog relating my amazement and, frankly, my disgust at Delta Air Lines’ refusal to waive their excess baggage policy to Santa Domingo for passengers on verifiable humanitarian missions. This week, Ken Silverman, CEO of Infinity Aviation Group, related a similar experience with Spirit Airlines.

On 2 February, Mr. Silverman’s girlfriend, a nurse practitioner and midwife in New York City, left the city for Ft. Lauderdale on Spirit Airlines, bound for Port Au Prince. On the evening of 30 January, she booked her ticket online then called to discusss baggage arrangements since she would be carrying two suitcases filled with medical supplies for newborns and pregnant women. She informed the Spirit supervisor that she would be carrying the humanitarian supplies and requested that the airline waive the baggage fee.  The supervisor suggested she to inform the agent when she checked in, “that they could help.”  They helped her, alright - they helped her lighten her wallet.  Checking in at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, Mr. Silverman says, “They not only charged her a standard luggage fee for each bag, but also for one bag being very overweight! Additional cost: $150.” 

When he contacted Spirit Airlines, Fay McKellar at Spirit replied, “…while your girlfriend’s relief efforts in Haiti are admirable, and we would never stand in the way of humanitarian work, we must uphold our baggage allowance policies and fees. Baggage standards apply regardless of where our customers are traveling or what they’re traveling with.  Baggage weight and size is an important component for our flight crew for accuracy in calculating weight and balance information. Items that are overweight or over-sized will continue to be weighed and sized at the airport, and fees collected at check-In. Our baggage guidelines are posted on our Contract of Carriage on our Web site, and it is the customer’s responsibility to read the Terms and Conditions they agree to upon purchasing a ticket. Thanks again for writing to Spirit Airlines.”  Ms McKellar said later that the airline had raised over $250,000 and had completed three humanitarian flights.  If those claims are true, then that’s terrific.  But, it begs the question: why was $150 such a big deal? 

Maybe it’s just me, but this is I what hear her saying: “Your girlfriend’s a real peach and while we aren’t on the ground, sleeping in a tent helping people, we won’t keep her from doing it. But, rules are rules and it’s much easier for me to tell you no than to actually effect a solution.  Even though all of this about weight and balance is safety and operations related and completely irrelevant to the issue at hand, I’m going to include it so that maybe you’ll be confused. We’re going to squeeze every dime out of you that we can and, if you didn’t know about it or don’t like it, it’s your own fault.  Bu-bye, now.” 

The air mass-transit machine promotes this kind of callous, automaton thinking on every level.  “No” is the airline equivalent of the old TV robot response of, “Does not compute.”  If your request or question isn’t within the script of too many agents, their inflexible answer is “no.”  I’ve worked at the ticket counter.  I’ve collected fees for overweight and excess baggage.  I’ve also helped people repack to avoid the fees.  I’ve helped them find other solutions and, sometimes, I’ve waived the fees.  And since fee collection has nothing whatsoever to do with safety or the captain’s authority on the safe operation of the aircraft, there is latitude for humanitarian discretion.  Or, at least there used to be.  If there isn’t anymore, then we have a serious problem.

Some people have a naturally high degree of empathy.  These people are the ones trying to save the world, lending a hand to anyone in need.  We secretly envy them because most of us just aren’t that nice.  Some of us earn it surviving some traumatic event – a house fire, a robbery, a tornado, or (in my case) losing everything to a hurricane like Katrina.  Take it from me, realizing that everything you own will fit into your car will change your perspective in a hurry.  Is that what it’s going to take to change the perspectives of Spirit, Delta and other carriers putting profits before humanity?

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On January 16th, I mentioned the Yield Management (or something to that effect) Department that all airlines have.  The purpose of that department is create fare structures that completely baffle the flying public and cause headaches the world over.  Well, maybe that’s not their stated purpose.  Maybe, that’s just a bonus.

We’ve all done it.  We’ve bought a ticket for roughly the equivalent of our mortgage, boarded the plane and sat next to someone who paid more for their shoes than for their ticket – and they’re not even good shoes.  How does that happen?!  You expect some price variations in all purchases, but ticket prices vary so wildly, there seems to be no logic in them at all.  Upon closer inspection, we find that there may not be any logic.

At the ticket counter, we knew that seats were sold based on supply and demand in “inventory buckets.”  When a flight was initially listed, the supply of seats was high, therefore the seat prices were lower.  As seats were sold, the supply decreased making each seat worth more.  I checked with a friend who once worked worked in Yield Management to help me explain the process.    He explained inventory buckets by saying that they are “like an ice tray held at an angle to the counter. Pour water into the highest chambers and when they’re full, the water flows over into the next. Same with the least expensive fares. As they sell out, availability kicks up into the next more expensive inventory and so on. This changes somewhat as the departure date nears; a carrier may close out lower inventories whether they’re sold out or not, if historical data shows the seats will sell at a higher fare.  It gets a lot more complicated though; for example, take a DFW-AUS (Dallas to Austin, Texas) trip. (The airline) may close out all *local* DFW-AUS availability (i.e. people wanting to buy a ticket just from DFW to AUS) even if there’s demand, if the historical data shows they’ll sell the remaining seats to customers connecting off a long-haul through DFW to AUS. Going the other  direction, say the flight’s routing is AUS-DFW-SEA (Austin to Dallas to Seattle), they may not sell a seat out of AUS to SEA if they think they’ll get a MIA-DFW-SEA (Miami to Dallas to Seattle) customer at a higher fare.”  He went on to say, “I truly believe it ultimately gets so complex that even the people in charge don’t really understand all the nuances.”

During the expansion of point-to-point, short-haul carriers like Southwest and AirTran (then ValuJet) in the 1990s, many frequent travelers began to suspect that rates were not based on actual costs, but, rather, on what everyone else was charging.  I was working as a travel agent in Jackson, Mississippi, at the time and I had clients that regularly traveled between Jackson and Atlanta, Georgia.  Their Delta Air Lines mid-week travel tickets cost in the neighborhood of $650.00.  ValuJet came riding into town with a much lower operating cost and sold those same seats for about $150.oo.  Delta matched the fare.  Did their the operating costs drop $500 per seat overnight?  Certainly, not.  However, because ValuJet could profitably sell the seats at that lower cost, what dropped $500 overnight was what the market would bear.

So, then, are fares based on actual costs at all?  When I asked my friend, his response surprised even me.  He said, “Costs are not part of the equation. In fact, we were told that cost data was deliberately kept separate to avoid having it influence fare levels. In my opinion, this is one of the major problems in the airline industry today.”  This is like spending $750,000 to build a house, then selling the house for $500,000 because that is the most anyone will pay for it.  And it’s like doing that hundreds of times every single day.  We’re not surprised, then, to hear that air mass-transit has lost $60 billion in the last nine years or that they’ve terminated employee pension funds.  What surprises us is that they’re still in business at all.

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Alert the media! Pop the champagne! Back-slapping all around! But wait, before we start engraving humanitarian awards, let’s look at a few things first.

Several days ago, a representative from One Vision International in Knoxville, Tennessee, called to see if we had any aircraft going to the Dominican Republic.  They need to transport medical supplies for a team of doctors who are traveling on Delta Air Lines to Santo Domingo on January 24, to help with relief efforts in remote areas of Haiti that have been inaccessible since the earthquake.  We can certainly arrange something on one of our small aircraft; but, here’s the thing – the airspace over the island is pretty saturated.  Ramp space in Port au Prince in non-existent and getting a reservation to land there is an ordeal of literally five or more hours, if you can get one.  Aid is pouring in from all over the planet and, in the larger scheme of things, taking in a small aircraft to offload 500 to 600 pounds of supplies and one worker isn’t terribly efficient.  With that in mind, I began looking for space in aircraft already bound for the area.

It only makes sense to get the medical supplies on the aircraft with the doctors.  The supplies are secure, arrive with the physicians and another aircraft isn’t introduced into the space – logical.  So, I called Delta’s Air Cargo reservations line to check on their humanitarian mission provisions.  They don’t have any.  The cargo reservations agent suggested that I contact passenger reservations to arrange for the excess baggage.  I did, and guess what?  They can’t take it.  Per their website, Delta Air Lines standard baggage policy states:

But that’s their standard policy, created before an earthquake left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and thousands dying from injuries that mean just a quick trip to the ER for us.  Surely, they are making allowances for passengers traveling on documentable humanitarian missions, right?  No.  Oh, you can take your medical supplies, alright, but you’ll have to pay retail air cargo rates to do it. One Vision International is still going to send doctors and they are still going to send supplies.  They are just going to do it without the help of the world’s largest passenger airline.

On the other hand, Air France has increased the frequency of their flights into Santo Domingo, has introduced special fares, included a higher baggage allowance and discounted excess baggage fees for those traveling on humanitarian missions.  Haiti hasn’t been a colony of France since 1804.  The Haitian community is estimated to number 80,000 in France and 600,000 in the United States.  The tiny country is 4576 miles from Paris and 1430 miles from Washington, D.C.  Air France is reducing their profit margins to help save the lives of these desperate people while Delta Air Lines is increasing their profits carrying more paying passengers and cargo into the region, sometimes even upgrading the aircraft from Boeing 737s to Boeing 757s. I’m not the only seeing the disparity here, I’m sure.  However, to be fair, Delta Air Lines did lose billions of dollars last year – they need make those profits up somewhere. And, if they don’t use the profits to pay for 2009’s losses, then they can always use them to pay for the all-cash acquisition of aircraft charter operator Segrave Aviation they announced on January 21, 2009.  So, Delta increases capacity into Santo Domingo – capacity for profits, that is.

Profits aren’t bad – we are all in business to pay our bills and make a profit.  However, we also ought to be in the business of being humane.

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