Crisis Management

Sometimes our sixth sense sends an indication and if responded timely, can avoid a tragedy. Very recently, while going to Romania, I had to spend sometime at Amsterdam. Not much to do, I decided to leave a bit early in the morning from the hotel to catch 11:40 am flight to Bucharest. My hotel at Amsterdam was near to the airport and even if I would have left the hotel at 9 am, I would have reached the airport well before time. Instead my sixth sense indicated me to leave early and I left the hotel at 8 am. It took me hardly 10 minutes to reach the airport. My boarding passes was all issued from Delhi to Amsterdam to Bucharest and finally to Cluj. My luggage was also all through to Cluj and at Amsterdam, I was supposed to just go through security check and immigration formalities. After reaching the airport, I checked the fight gate number at the screen and started proceeding towards the gate. I witnessed an unusual crowd and was trying my best to avoid that crowd. I was following the signboards to reach the assigned gate and, in every direction, I was somehow reaching near the crowd. Finally, I inquired from a couple of persons, which confirmed that my way to the gate is same as that of this huge crowd. I was travelling in business class and was having sufficient time, it gave me a confidence of reaching the boarding gate on time.

Being in Europe, I was expecting a disciplined crowd, but the fact was that each person was trying his/her best to reach their respective boarding gates. Some people were using elbows, some their luggage and some were shouting at their highest pitch to get the attention of airport staff, who were present there to manage the crowd. But I must give due credit to the crowd for not raising slogans against the airport authorities or the government or the airlines. There was only one passage to reach all boarding gates and the staff present there were allowing just 30-40 people to pass through the designated line. There was no priority line for business class, no priority line for premium customers and no priority line for elders etc. There was just a crowd and each person in the crowd was struggling to surpass that designated line. After an hour, I reached the designated line and after 10 minutes of wait at the line, I along with some 30 people were allowed to pass. We had to climb the stairs, which we did and we were told to take respective ques for security check. I took que of business class passengers and rest of the people went into economic class ques. I spend another one hour in the que and this que was slowly turning towards right hand for security check. As soon as my turn towards right came, I was shocked to realize that I had walked less than 60% of que. Another 45 minutes, I was able to put my luggage through X-ray. After security check, I rushed towards immigration counter, within five minutes I was free from there. I reached the boarding gate at around 11:20 am, with all my energy exhausted. There was no staff at the gate and I could hardly see 10-15 passengers waiting for the boarding. Initially I thought boarding is done, but then upon confirmation, I realized that the boarding has not started yet. We waited for next 30 minutes, after which two staff members came. They were in no hurry to start the boarding and when inquired, they mentioned that boarding will be initiated soon. At around 12:20 pm, they started the boarding, boarding was completed in less than 10 minutes. We were ready to leave, when pilot made an announcement that there are 76 more passengers stuck at security check. As per pilot, he and his company had taken a decision to wait for rest of the passengers. I had a connecting flight from Bucharest to Cluj with a gap of 2.5 hours, so I was a bit relaxed. I could afford 2-hour delay. After an hour of boarding, we could see 3 more passengers boarding the aircraft, followed by an announcement from the pilot in which he mentioned that the company has decided to wait for some more time. Myself, along with some other passengers, talked to the crew members, mentioning about our connecting flights. They assured us for all possible help. After 3 hours of boarding, pilot made an announcement that company has decided to take off but there were still 66 passengers stuck at the security check area. During these three hours of waiting, only 10 passengers could make it to reach the aircraft.

I was worried about my connecting flight. As soon as I reached Bucharest, I rushed towards immigration counter. It took me few minutes to pass through that area and I started looking for the airport screen. I was sure that flight might have left and I was now thinking of making alternate arrangements to reach Cluj. When I saw towards the screen, I could not believe my eyes. My flight status was showing delayed. I rushed towards the gate and boarded the connecting flight. I could see a couple of passengers from my previous flight, which in fact had instigated the airlines to delay the connecting flight.

The reason behind mentioning this episode is to have a short discussion on handling crisis management.

I am a frequent domestic traveller and I have at many occasions seen more crowds at Indian airports than what I saw at Amsterdam airport. But then how airline staff and airport authority at various Indian airports are able to effectively manage the crowds, contrary to this, staff at Amsterdam was not able to. Let me put my thoughts here:

Proactive approach: At Amsterdam airport, weren’t the authority expecting such crowd? I am sure, yes, everything is online nowadays. Amsterdam airport authority might have all available data. Weren’t they knowing their capacity of handing per day passengers? There were no proactive measures taken by them. There was chaos, there were passengers everywhere and nobody, including the staff, were not having any instructions or orders from the higher authorities. Contrary to that, we have much better systems at Indian airports and our domestic airlines take best possible proactive measures. We get multiple SMS from airlines to push passengers for earliest possible arrivals at the airport. We get SMS for any delays, sometimes we even get calls from airlines, assisting us or giving necessary instructions. During festival season, we get an extra SMS, Kudos to our domestic airlines. My mobile number was registered when my international tickets were booked, I didn’t get any SMS for the delays/security check at Amsterdam airport. No doubt, they did not take any proactive measures to ensure better crowd control.

Bottleneck: During my recent training program at IIM, Ahmedabad, there was a very important lesson and learning about bottleneck. Every system has a bottleneck, and without a bottleneck no system will exist. If we want to improve the efficiency in the system, focus on the bottleneck. Amsterdam airport authority should have evaluated the bottleneck and that might have helped more passengers to board the aircraft. In my opinion, security check was the bottleneck. In best case scenario, the authority could have added the X-ray machines. Assuming that extra machines were not available, there could have been few other steps taken to remove the bottleneck. For example, there was no person available at the X-ray machine to assist the passengers. Some people were removing all stuff from their bags, when in fact it was not required. Amsterdam airport is one of the airports with advanced technique, wherein laptops and other electronic gadgets are not required to be taken out of the handbags. Most of the people were not knowing this and this, in my opinion could have increased the in-flow of passengers.

Put more resources: Resources could be manpower or X-ray machines, but I could see none in this case. Before the staircase, there was an old man and two female employees trying to persuade and manage the crowd. Many passengers sneaked and that old man could do nothing. The two female employees were giving instructions to the crowd and to the old man from a distance of 100 meters, we couldn’t hear a dam word. There was no one at X-ray area to assist us. There was one gentleman trying to put his nose at multiple places, many people were jumping the que, leaving the crowd in much more depressive environment. ?Imagine such situation at Delhi or Mumbai airport, at least we could have seen added manpower resources at various levels. Be it at the initial stage, wherein it was becoming very difficult for that old man and two girls to manage the crowd, or at X-ray counter to assist the passengers. Some people may argue that getting resources in Europe is much more expensive than India. So, what, aren’t we paying money when we buy tickets, be it India or Europe. If airport authority or airlines are not able to provide requisite services, they should not do that business.

Flexibility: In fact, the best option to handle crisis is flexibility. Crisis management becomes extremely difficult when we are adamant to follow the pre-defined processes. There has to be a provision of business continuity plan and that can be governed through SOPs. The airlines indeed showed flexibility by delaying the flight by around 3 hours and they also showed flexibility by delaying the connecting flight. Appreciated, but this came with a huge price for the airlines. We can imagine how much it could have cost the airlines for these delays. But instead, airlines and airport authorities could have shown flexibility in other domains. I am not an expert in this area, but why can’t airlines come forward during such crisis situations and help airport authority with manpower? Why can’t airport authority divert passengers through domestic security check? Why can’t authorities make a separate and dedicated line for those passengers whose flights are about to depart? I have keenly observed this type of flexibility at our domestic airports. I have seen multiple times, airlines staff coming to security check area and assisting those passengers who are late.

Communication: One thing which was absolutely missing was communication. There was no communication between authorities and passengers, no SMS from airlines, no public announcement. Passengers were not aware of the situation, in fact even the pilot was not having the update. Some of the passengers talked to the crew members about the same, no one could respond exactly the reason for this chaos. For 3 hours of our waiting time in the aircraft after boarding and then 2.5 hours of travel time, no one bothered to inform us that our connecting flight has been delayed by the company. Only thing which they did, was assurance from the crew members that we will get all possible support for getting connecting flights. Proper communication plays a significant role in pacifying the situation. Again, let me take this opportunity to praise our domestic airlines and Indian airport authorities for having much better communication system in place.

Increase efficiency: I could not see or observe any efforts by airport staff to increase efficiency. A key parameter to handle crisis is to increase efficiency at each level and that is only possible when authorities want to. I have experience of handling many exigencies and at most of the occasions, increasing the efficiency in the existing system was quite helpful. Next time when you are at any domestic airport, do observe how airlines staff increase their efficiency based on the workload.

Collaboration: Indeed, collaboration was missing between airlines and airport staff.

Last but not the least, experience plays a vital role in managing crisis situation. Our domestic airlines staff and our airport authorities have ample experience in handling larger crowds. Then who is stopping European airlines for hiring experience staff.

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By

Dr. Arshad H Khuroo

Head Bioavailability and Bioequivalence