The past few days for Philippine aviation have been quite eventful. Last week, there was a global IT-related outage that caused airlines worldwide to cancel and delay flights. Then, heavy rains and flooding caused by a typhoon led to more cancellations and delays. Some passengers, unhappy with the situation, took out their frustration on the helpless ground crew and airport staff, even though these incidents were beyond their control. As such, I kept reminding air passengers to exercise more kindness and understanding.
Reports from airport staff revealed that during the global IT outage, many passengers yelled at the ground crew, demanding their flights be reinstated and insisting they do something, as if the ground crew worked for Microsoft. Some passengers even mentioned personal inconveniences, such as needing to pick up their children from school, but failed to consider calling relatives for help.
The ground crew felt helpless, stressed emotionally and physically. Imagine dealing with an incident beyond their control and being screamed at as if they were personal slaves. While passengers understandably want what they paid for, which is to get on their flights, they must also recognize that certain circumstances are beyond the crew’s and airline’s control. During the outage, the ground crew had to manually check in passengers and board them, which took extra time.
While some passengers understood the situation, others were insensitive and self-absorbed.
A Balance Between Safety and the Passenger’s Needs
Safety is paramount and non-negotiable in the airline industry. However, airlines also have to balance safety with passenger needs, managing expectations without compromising safety and welfare. This includes considering rebooking passengers for free and providing free meals and lodging.
These situations include but are not limited to:
- Natural calamities such as typhoons, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, snowstorms, and sandstorms.
- Civil unrest like civil wars and anarchy.
- Technical glitches and global outages.
- Airport mishaps.
Such situations, beyond an airline’s control, require more understanding, kindness, and cooperation from passengers. While flight disruptions caused by these events can be frustrating, the best approach is to maintain presence of mind and cooperate with airport staff to minimize chaos. Practicing kindness and understanding reduces stress for both parties and helps everyone think more clearly. Crew members are also humans with plans after work but may end up working overtime to attend to passengers’ needs.
Airlines and their employees do not like flight disruptions as they are tiring and costly. However, these are part of the aviation industry, and airlines must always anticipate them.
Decision-making in an airline is complex and involves multiple departments. Ground staff and airport managers cannot quickly restore flights amidst unforeseen and unfavorable situations. Even if passengers demand immediate action, the staff cannot fulfill such requests swiftly.
Exercising kindness and understanding makes both passengers and ground crew happier in stressful situations and helps in planning the next steps. This approach doesn’t diminish anyone’s dignity.
To all passengers, please exercise more kindness and understanding toward the ground staff and cabin crew during situations beyond the airline’s control. While they are there to attend to your needs, they have limitations, including the inability to get your flight back in the air immediately during unfortunate situations.
First love never dies. I fell in love with airplanes and aviation when I was a kid. My dream was to become a pilot, but destiny led me to another path: to be an aviation digital media content creator and a small business owner. My passion for aviation inspires me to bring you quality content through my website and social accounts. Aviation is indeed in my blood and blog!
