Delayed flights cost airlines millions each year in penalties and passenger compensation. The document describes a travel experience where the author's first flight was over two hours late, almost causing them to miss their connecting flight. While they made the connection with 10 minutes to spare, their luggage did not. The author reflects that companies often celebrate employees who "pull off miracles" to meet deadlines, rather than focusing on completing tasks correctly the first time and on schedule to avoid costly delays and stress.

1. “Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.” - Author William Shakespeare
1564 to1616
Extract from the e-book ‘See, Learn, Change …’
Using the tools of Lean and Six Sigma to change your business
“Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than trying to solve them” – Henry Ford
June 2016
My recent travels have taken
me around the USA, on one
of the journeys I needed to
transfer through Atlanta from
JFK.
Having first carefully planned my
journey, I had ensured I had at least a 2 hour lay-over
at each airport to wait for the next flight. Google also
helpfully told me my flight to Atlanta and the onward
flight were both typically were delayed by 35 minutes.
Having left a 3 hour
layover in JFK and a 2
hour lay-over in Atlanta, I
was confident my
planning was sufficient.
All worked well until my flight to Atlanta was delayed
by 35 minutes (as this was expected according to
Google and I had no concerns). This eventually
became close to 2 hours late by the time the plane
pulled away from the air
bridge, raising my nervousness
of not being on site with the
client. As we took off, the pilot
announced that we have been
given permission to make up
time by running a little faster
than the planned route time. Overall, shortening the
journey time by some 20 minutes off the expected
flight time.
As we disembarked the plane, one of the two pilots
who was ‘dead heading’ turned to his friend and
remarked that this flight would have cost several
thousand more dollars in fuel to make this journey
possible and to try and get as many people to their
next connections. Looking at the total cost to the
carrier, this flight cost more than a few thousand
dollars in fuel.
In truth, the flight operator lost their profit that
day on this flight in; the fuel costs, along with
connection fees, late departure fees, plus
compensation, baggage transfer, courier costs and
hotel bills. Not to mention the extra stress put into
the planes airframe.
It is estimated that delayed flight penalties in the
USA alone cost companies $8 Million (USD) and
$17 Million in passenger compensation last year.
This led me to think how many times do we run
late? Having to ‘burn our teams’ in; additional
hours, asking them to sacrifice home time, paying
overtime, putting on extra shifts and over-stressing
equipment just to get the job done.
delayed flights cost $8 million and
$17 million in passenger compensation
When you total all of these costs up, you have to
stand back and consider the total cost and impact
on the bottom line of the business.
I fear that all too often we
rather look to celebrate the
‘Just made it’ and praise the
‘superheroes’ for pulling off
another ‘miracle’? Rather
than recognising those who
do their job right first time, on time and in full.
In case you are wondering, I made the connection
with 10 minutes to spare. My plane finally parked
at gate B24, and then my next plane was thankfully
at gate B26. My luggage however was not so lucky.
It did not make the transfer, but spent the night in
Atlanta. We had a new version of ‘Dress-Down
Thursday’ along with no notes and kit for the
training course that day with the client. Thank
goodness for supportive and understanding clients,
flip charts, marker pens and files saved on remote
memory storage.