One common error in management decision-making is sticking to short-term tactics that are inappropriate to a changed context.  I’m an expert in executive management decision-making.  Recently, I experienced different approaches taken by people in various roles in airline ticketing and scheduling processes.

In the case of sequestration, I had to go to the airport twice and reschedule flights when I could have simply rescheduled once.  The saga began when a low ceiling in Chicago delayed national and international flights that affected travellers worldwide for at least a day.

In my case, I was not going to make a connection in Chicago due to a “Tower Delay”, which meant that the tower had too many planes taking off and landing at the time my flight was originally scheduled to arrive in Chicago.   The root cause was a low cloud ceiling earlier in the day that had created cascading delays internationally.

Since I was visiting family, I had a free pace to stay and some flexibility in my travel schedule.  I took pity on the gate agents who were backed up with people trying to make connections for international travel.  I made the mistake of telling the agents I would rebook by phone.

My risk management assessment of the weather the next few days indicated that I would be better off delaying my Tuesday flight until Saturday, when most missed flights due to the weather would have been rescheduled.  The airline phone ticket agent, however, was not optimizing my time, and insisted I needed to take a flight closer to my flight time or I would have to pay a change fee.  Finally I agreed to the less than ideal Wednesday flight, and told her I would probably end up having to reschedule again.

I went to the airport the next day, a Wednesday, for an inconvenient flight that took me in the wrong direction for 3 hours without any of the lovely bulkhead seats I had previously reserved.  I found myself in the same line, with the same beleaguered gate agents who were again rescheduling desperate customers trying to make international connections.  In my second trip to the airport, it was tower layoffs due to sequestration that limited the number of flight that could land at my intermediate destination airport.

This time I stayed and worked with the gate agents, who made better context based decisions.  They gave me a Saturday flight and took me up on my offer to handle seating myself.  I had a lovely flight, with great seats and a perfect connection on Saturday.

MY AIRLINE RECOMMENDATIONS
My recommendations to airlines, while the effects of sequestration are being worked out are:

1. More flexibility in all rebooking rules for passengers.
2. Triple required flight connection times.
3. Admit reality and cancel some flights to overloaded airports.

MY TRAVELER RECOMMENDATIONS
My recommendations for travellers are:

1. Get flight insurance.
2. Consider driving.
3. Avoid travelling on crowded travel days:  Mondays, Fridays, major holidays.
4. Give yourself at least 3 hours, preferably 4, between connections.
5. Register complaints early and often.
6. Take an airline with liberal rebooking rules.

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