Does transparency promote tranquility?

Perhaps not exactly, but close. Here’s why.

A recent trip to Orlando, FL, that should have been a short 2.5 hour flight turned into a five-hour wait going nowhere. I walked away from the experience with reaffirmation that transparency wins people over, even when shows like Airline (reality-TV show about airports) present scenes like this. Here's how it went down.

New Jerseyans are not always known for being the most patient people (as experienced by this born-and-raised Jersey gal). Additionally - and factually speaking - flying out of Newark Liberty Airport in N.J. is often an extreme test of patience thanks to its continual #1 ranking as the most delayed airport in the USA (a title won again in 2019). 

Thus when something goes wrong with a plane scheduled to depart from Newark Liberty Airport with predominantly NJ-based passengers (even when heading to the happiest place on earth) AFTER the plane has been fully boarded, it’s a recipe for a human powder keg. 

 This was not how flight 1527 played out. 

Two minutes after the last passenger boarded the plane we were advised of a problem with the main cabin door. Five minutes later, we were instructed to deplane as the door needed to be checked more thoroughly. No sooner had the pilot finished saying the word “deplane” than the collective groan intensified. I had visions of more than one plane mate getting carted off in handcuffs.

 What happened next was amazing.

 No shouting. No pushing. Some laughter. Witty comments. Passengers helping each other. We calmly filed off the plane, settling back in at Gate 101 without a clue of if and when we’d be whisked off to happy-land. 

An hour into our wait, the pilot took the counter microphone at the gate and explained in detail what was going on, expressed his own frustration about the situation and committed to keeping us updated. He stood right in the seating area nearly the entire time, fielding questions from passengers and even asking permission to leave the gate for five minutes simply to get a cup of coffee. “Don’t panic,” he said as he walked away, “I’m in this with you.” 

The delay was over five hours. Throughout there was no shouting, no pushing, no handcuffs. No infamous “Jersey attitude.”

While many were surprised by the absence of drama, I wasn’t. From the moment the captain explained from the cockpit what was going on to the intermittent updates he gave at the gate, he was transparent. We had the facts, we knew it was a potential safety issue that the airline took seriously, and it was what it was. While we may not have liked spending nearly all day Saturday in the airport, we understood why and that is what made the situation tolerable.

Transparency matters. People appreciate it - and they act understandingly when they have it, even when they don’t like a situation. You are not guaranteed answers you like, but you deserve answers that are transparent. Clearly our captain yesterday agrees with me given how he handled the situation. 

We eventually got back on the plane as the captain welcomed us to the “second edition of Flight 1527.” The door held, we got to happy land, and life went on.

Transparency matters. Role model it and thank others who do, including pilots.

P.S. How to pass the time in an airport delay: Several of my colleagues were on the flight, so we spent the wait time learning more about each other as people (versus colleagues) and doing a quasi-scientific experiment on whose cell phones charged the fastest by using (1) the USB charging port directly, (2) a small transformer-plug and (3) a large transformer-plug. #3 won