Airport Operation in Latin America - the cost of On-time Inefficiency
This is probably the only certainty one may have when observing the mix of concerns and desires, which coexist, internally, in Latin American airlines.
The cognitive dissonance that motivates two opposing teams, in the dispute for prominence in companies' operations:
In a silent dispute of parallel initiatives, in opposite directions, while the Operational Army searches for technologies and processes that promise to board passengers and close doors on time, the Financial Army turns the company's operations upside down, in search of mechanisms which may help in its fight against THE greatest villain – Fuel costs !
There is not a single professional working in Latin American air transport, who is not aware of this silent and hidden dispute, that keeps these armies isolated, locked in their domains, living in their comfort zones, creating processes and implementing technologies that grant them their Pyrrhic victories!
It is frighteningly curious how each of Latin American airlines avoids a question that is as obvious as it is essential to the economic viability of their operations and, ultimately, to their very survival!
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When demand exceeds the operational capacity of the air transport system, which comprises airspace and airports (which we all know is inevitable), what should be the top priority, reflected in all company's actions?
Punctuality or Profitability ?
As long as we keep the Operational and Financial Armies apart, and hide behind evasive answers like “it depends”, we will continue to board passengers and close aircraft doors, for a journey into traffic jams, on the ground and in flight, with engines on, wasting fuel and unnecessarily harming the environment!
As the Brazilian Historian Mário Sergio Cortella says, "The word priority does not have an 's', because those who say they have two priorities, in fact have none."