What do you get when you combine a New Year’s holiday flight, Delta Air Lines, and a tight Detroit connection? Gate agents yelling at pilots publicly, questionable security and safety standards, needless threats… and what I hope will be one excellent management case study on what happens when our employees get stressed, lose perspective, and literally no one is in control.
A hazard of my profession is that I see exceptional service often – exceptionally good and exceptionally bad. And when that happens, I take time to say something about both. I’ve arranged commendations for truck drivers, gotten TSA agents removed and retrained, called the State Patrol to report the State Patrol, and written raving reviews about Delta Air Lines agents in the past, to name a few.
This time, though, this case study about Delta Air Lines isn’t nearly so positive.
For this case study, I’ll lay out in bullet-point order the experience my wife and I shared on our Jan. 2nd flight from Houston returning to Seattle, connecting through Detroit. First, I will simply lay out what happened, leaning on you to begin sorting out what you believe is relevant and not relevant to the case study. I’ll declare up front that my main focus here will be on employee actions and possible corrections; we won’t tackle everything along the way.
Your goal should be to spot where you think things went wrong, and how you would correct the situation if you were Delta management and had a magic wand. At the end, I’ll give you my diagnosis and we’ll see how much you agree or disagree with me. Along the way, be sure to look for issues and items that seem relevant to your own business.
Let me reveal one last bias up front: Delta is our airline of choice. With my wife being from India, Delta has the best, most direct service from Seattle. In fact, I have $4,500 worth of Delta tickets to India in a saved itinerary that I haven’t purchased yet. That reminds me: The air crew are fond of reminding us we have a choice when we fly. After you read this, perhaps you’ll also have an opinion of whether I should give Delta that $4,500.
The Facts
- Our entire itinerary was booked through Delta.com, including the tight 45 minute, same-terminal connection in Detroit.
- As the flight to Detroit was a regional jet, gate crew made plane side checking of carry-ons mandatory. Air crew then overruled gate crew and began bringing a select few bags on board, but did so with no consideration for passengers with tight connections. My wife’s bag got plane-side checked.
- The flight from Houston to Detroit was delayed, arriving 34 minutes late. (The Detroit loop had been behind all day, with one flight cancelled.) Connection time now: 11 minutes.
- Passengers gathered in and clogged the jetway, waiting for plane-side checked bags. A few other passengers struggled to get through the crowd. As compared to other Delta flights, it was immediately clear that the gate area was not under control.
- I took shelter (read: was pushed) in the operator’s bay for the jetway, where I noticed that the key to the jetway was in the switch and left in the on position. Good thing I didn’t accidently bump the controls in the jostling.
- One passenger repeatedly exited the jetway onto the landing leading to the stairs to the tarmac, begging for, looking for, and reaching around for his child’s stroller.
- Bag retrieved, we fought our way through the sizeable, uncontrolled crowd and up the ramp.
For the next facts, I need to switch to dialog as best I recorded it in notes made after the incident:
- Delta Pilot – At top of the ramp, a Delta Pilot gives up after waiting 20 minutes to have his credentials checked and walks past the gate agent and enters the jetway, passing to my left headed toward the plane. Stops on my left as he gets yelled at.
- Gate Agent – Entering jetway from the right, stepping in front of me, blocking my path, literally yelling at at Pilot through me, “Hey, you can’t go down there yet!”
- Me – “Excuse me,” trying to get around her [Gate Agent].
- Pilot – Yelling back, “I’ve been waiting for 20 minutes!”
- Me – Still trying to clear agent. Frustrated to be stuck in an argument I’m not a party to.
- Gate Agent - Loud, almost yelling (still through me) - “It doesn’t matter. You can’t go anywhere until I check… (something else but I cut her off)”
- Me – Now also loud – not escalating, but matching the Gate Agent in an attempt to get her to stop ignoring me – “And I can’t make my connection if you won’t get out of the way.”
- Gate Agent – Still just as loud, but at least she’s finally communicating with me. And still blocking me - “I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to him (the pilot).”
- Me - “And I’m talking to you. We’re all trying to make connections and you’re in the way,” during which Gate Agent finally steps aside (to the right instead of left toward the Pilot). Incident should now be over.
- Gate Agent - Incident not over. Steps back in front of me, announcing, “I’m going to call the Sherriff and you can talk to him about that.”
- Pilot – Was left in the secure area, still unchecked, by the Gate Agent as she went to call the Sherriff.
- Me – With the Gate Agent finally out of the way, I and all the passengers stacked up behind the “Gate Agent–Me–Pilot” jetway cluster were finally able to leave.
- Gate Agent – Yelled a request that I sit and wait for the Sherriff as I left with everyone else.
- Me – Continued to leave. Clearly felt unsafe approaching Gate Agent to request her information to file complaint.
Final Facts
- We saw from the walkway that the Pilot finally got his credentials checked once the Gate Agent got off the phone.
- Our flight to Seattle closed as we got to the gate. But the gate agent there was a manager and re-opened the door.
- Identifying himself as a manager, he promised to contact me with the information about the offending gate agent so I could follow-up with Delta. I’ve never heard back.
- Our flight to Seattle landed on time… minus our bags. They arrived a day later.
What’s Not Relevant
Ok, now that the facts are displayed in all their bloody glory, let’s dismiss a few items from consideration before we look at the real issues.
- The flight to Detroit was late. These things happen. If you can’t handle late flights and missed connections once in a while you’re a new or holiday-only traveler. Suck it up.
- No bags on arrival. Again, this is a yawner to me, especially during the holidays. Plus they were delivered intact one day later.
- Plane-side checking of carry-ons. I’m sure my wife will disagree with this one, and others will say that preference really ought to be given to putting bags on the plane for those with tight connections. I simply don’t see the practicality in this. We’re talking about a full flight on a regional jet with small bins that can’t handle regulation-size carry-ons. Frustrating? Yes, especially on a tight connection. But a relative non-issue.
And What of My Behavior?
Before we get to the Delta Airlines staff involved, let’s consider me. Did my behavior warrant a call to the Sherriff?
Could I have picked any of a number of other behaviors in an attempt to extract myself from the middle of someone else’s argument, and to stop from being yelled through? Of course! There are always options… and I encourage you to firmly remember that the next time a rampaging gate agent is literally yelling through your head right after you’ve been pushed around on a crowded walkway that makes a teenager’s rave dance party look tame.
But is it now illegal to not want to be accidentally caught in the middle of someone else’s quarrel? To not want to be included in an argument-cum-investigation you’re not a party to? And to take issue with being ignored in your attempt to remove yourself – and your fellow passengers - from that situation?
Is escalation to law enforcement warranted when 1) no request was made of me, 2) no command given to me, and 3) no threat made by me? Is it an offense, after first asking nicely, to match the offensive Gate Agent’s intensity in an attempt to get her to no longer ignore my attempts to leave and take a plane full of people with me? Or is this some new Gate Agent training technique that it’s okay to refer matters to law enforcement when you simply don’t like someone’s attitude and elect to ignore the rest of your job (i.e. being of basic courteous service to them by not blocking exits)?
By my way of thinking, to be fully honest and truthful in her call to the Sherriff, the Gate Agent’s call absolutely had to sound something like this:
“Hello, Sherriff? I just left an unidentified pilot who breached a secure area in that secure area in order to call you and report that a passenger who was completely uninvolved in that incident and whose exit path I blocked as I argued with the pilot just had the nerve to interrupt my argument.”
Despite that being the absolute 100% absurd truth, I sincerely doubt that’s what she said.
So what do you think – book me, Danno?
Now, The Good Stuff
So what did you spot that you had a problem with, and why was it a problem? Let’s tackle that first. Next, we’ll talk about what to do with the people involved.
- Inappropriate Escalation.
It is clear that the Gate Agent has had some form of training in dealing with tough situations because she applied some basic techniques. 1) She removed herself from the situation; 2) She utilized a higher escalation point; and 3) She knew to request me to wait for the Sherriff but not to order me to wait or to stop me from leaving as to do either could open liability for her and/or Delta.However, there are basic problems with any escalation and the escalation she chose in particular.First, there was zero need to escalate. All she had to do was clear a safe path for people to exit. She and the pilot were effectively blocking the exit, in itself creating an unsafe condition. Solution: Simply step to the left side of the walkway where the pilot was instead of talking through me. Better solution: remove the pilot from the secure area. That she didn’t see any of a number of simpler solutions available and instead chose an argumentative path, escalating needlessly, combined with the other chaos in the gate area is a strong indicator that her personal stress limits were exceeded and she needed relief or simply to be relieved.
Second, she had no legitimate cause of action yet cloaked herself in the protection of the Sherriff, threatening my liberties. Training that she obviously has not had is that she needs to be very careful prior to threatening anyone’s liberties without very strong and fully truthful grounds for doing so; a flimsy or false attempt could cause her personally and/or Delta to suffer liability under a variety protections.
- Lack of Situational Awareness.
The gate agent chastised the pilot in public, creating an inappropriate situation. At the same time, she did not seem to recognize that delaying a pilot attempting to make up time on a delayed route was unacceptable. She blocked numerous passengers from exiting the walkway. She had no apparent realization that her jetway had unsafe groups of people gathering near the airplane. In short, the entire gate area was clearly out of control and she did not seem fully aware of the ways. - Stress Reaction.
The gate agent did not appear to be executing rational decision making. She did not appear to have paused to assess service levels and plan for or request required/missing assistance. She was actually executing decisions, out of stress, that were making marginal situations worse. - Lack of Professionalism.
Regarding the Gate Agent, there are any number of ways to handle a disgruntled pilot rather than to yell at him – a professional colleague – in public. Of course the same goes for the Pilot. None of those ways include 1) ignoring a customer’s attempt to exit, 2) ignoring a customer’s request to exit, 3) yelling at/through/around a customer, or 4) threatening a customer without cause. - Disregard for Security Protocols.
Any Pilot knows better than to break security protocol when entering a secure area, no matter how long they’ve been ignored by the Gate Agent. But the Gate Agent, too, is at fault. While she was busy calling the Sherriff, she left the Pilot in the secure area; had she truly been that concerned, she would have removed him prior to calling… or called the Sherriff on him. Additionally, had she maintained service levels discussed above, this entire incident would not have occurred. - No gate personnel on the jetway.
This created an unsafe condition where people clustered waiting for bags and were pushing each other. Generally, there is at least one gate personnel to help direct and control passengers. - Lack of Control of Baggage Area.
The lone Delta staffer in the walkway, the baggage handler, did not have control of his own situation. Had he, a passenger would not have joined him on the conveyor area more than three times. - Active Jetway.
It’s hard to believe that in today’s hyper-conscious (overly so?) culture toward safety and security that the walkway controls would be left not only unsecured but activated. The above clustering made this unsafe, as I discovered.
What to Do… What to Do?
So you’re Delta management and you receive a complaint letter from me with this blog attached (that’s true). What do you do? Here are a few things I’d suggest:
- Track down the parties involved and get their version. No doubt it will be completely different than mine. Granted, I do this for a living, but still, others will have their own perspectives.
- First, find the manager from our Seattle flight who promised to contact me with enough information to file a complaint against the Gate Agent and find out why that never happened. That was a critical moment of customer service promise broken.
- Second, find the Pilot. He has to receive a written warning for violation of security policies and any necessary retraining, no matter what we think of the Gate Agent.
- Third, find the baggage handler. He, too, needs retraining on how to interact with passengers and how to stop unsafe behavior.
- Last but certainly not least, our Gate Agent genuinely needs help in a few areas: triaging/assessing service quality level across the entire gate area and when to call for backup; stress management training with a focus on lateral problem solving so that she sees other, simpler options besides escalation; the importance of proper escalation paths and the personal/corporate risks to inappropriate escalation. This should be combined into a 90 day performance improvement plan and closely monitored after that. And of course if any other complaints of threats by this Gate Agent have been made in the past year, she should be immediately terminated.
So What’s In It For You?
Think your business is completely different from the air travel business? Think again. Ask yourself these important questions:
- Disgruntled Customers.
Granted, I wasn’t mad until the Gate Agent decided to call the Sherriff and I was already leaving, so this is a hypothetical. But if you invite the public onto your premises, do your people have directions on what to do with irate customers? When to escalate and to whom? Do they know if they have the authority to call Police and under what circumstances? - Hidden Levers in your business.
That jetway was unlocked and active for anyone to move and do accidental or deliberate damage with. Where are the “hidden levers” in your business? Common examples today include unattended, unlocked computers, unsecured storage and server areas, weak network security, physical equipment that isn’t kept in good, safe repair. It sounds too basic, but anytime you don’t have to take a special action to use something of yours, neither does someone else, and that’s risky. - Stress Impacts Us Differently.
For our Gate Agent, stress clouded her judgments, prevented her from seeing simpler lateral solutions, and degraded her performance against service levels. Do you know how stress impacts each of your people and how to help them rebound? Using our Success Insights line of behavioral instruments, we can tell when and how people’s behavior changes in reaction to stress, how performance might degrade, and what to do about it. - So… What Are Your Service Measures?
Above when discussing the Gate Agent’s performance, I said that she had not paused to consider service levels. One way I can know this is because she kept a Pilot (presuming he’s telling the truth) waiting for 20 minutes. What are the Service Level Measures – or Key Performance Indicators – for your business? Here’s a hint, if you don’t have any, make some or contact me for help because you’re not yet getting the results out of your business that you could.
Oh Right, One Last Question
What about the $4,500 in tickets in that saved itinerary? Do I give the business to Delta or go somewhere else?
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