Originally Posted by
Scoop
No ****! This is symptomatic of a much bigger issue at DAL-empowering your employees vice micro-managing them. If this story is true, it is great for us that it happened. The D-0 emphasis is one of the most misguided attempts at one size fits all management fiats that I have seen. I was departing on A concourse the other day in the bad weather and the aircraft in the very next gate was closed out with about 10-12 distraught passengers begging to be put on. The Gate agent would not do it even though the Rampers were still loading bags - totally pathetic but I don't blame the gate agent because this is the exact thing our sometimes clueless management asks for, D-0 at all costs.
Could anyone see this happening at Southwest? Or a Southwest agent closing the door on an employee, let alone a CEO type? Now, don't get wrong, Southwest is not management nirvana either, but they definitely empower their employees, which is a common factor within "great" companies. How about giving gate agents a little flexibility and trusting them to make good decisions? I agree we must put a very high emphasis on an on-time operation, but there are times when D-0 is the totally wrong option. But of course if gate agents are graded on their D-0 times that is what you will get. D-0, CEO, employees, passengers left at the gate be dammed.
What really gets me going on this issue is seeing a single gate agent working a 757 flight. They leave the gate to drive the jetway promptly after being called by ramp and told gate XXX has no jetway driver. Passengers all lined up, with no one working the gate. Can this be done-yes. Do we do it - yes. Is the good customer service - not in the least. But hey, passengers only want a cheap ticket so screw customer service.
This is where DAL has to decide, are we actually going to try to be a great airline and provide great service, or are we going to slug it out on trying to provide the cheapest possible, most outsourced to the lowest bidder product? All the while, by the way, proclaiming to be a great airline.
Hey R.A. Great companies and organizations empower people - figure it out.
Scoop
You're exactly right.
I told this "probable" story to another 88 B buddy of mine, the story fwiw came from someone in the CP office, and my buddy had something similiar to what you're mentioning. They had 10-20 people up in the gate house wanting to get on a plane and they were on a maintenance delay for another 30 minutes with seats to accomodate some but not all. The gate agent refused, the flight was closed out. The Captain got irate, got the red coat down and got refused again. Couldn't get anywhere on the radio either. The reasoning for not allowing them on the plane was that it would create a mob scene.
So insert your $%@#%@, mob scene?!? Don't we have a list on that monitor to go by? Evidently not or they don't have a good reason. I saw like 20 people once on an ER miss their flight, it was past push, but since the plane was still tied up on the gate some supervisors showed up and reopened the flight and got them on... and got cussed at in the process by several passengers. It is a thankless job and some of our agents might be so burned out they don't care. Thats a problem too imo.
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And before anyone starts jumping up and down that they'd done xyz, great for you, but it ain't going to do anything for those folks and keep in mind this isn't rogue agents doing this either. We need another outlet option as the flight crew to get permission from above the most senior red coats and gate agents to allow people to get on when seats are available.
When I was at ExpressJet we used to go double check the gate for folks but then eventually Continental started nixing that across the board. It was finally explained by the CPs office that its not our job to hold planes or look for people, its our job to fly the plane and if they want to run their airline this way then thats their call whether we like it or not. Sound familiar? Its not just Delta.