I was recently reading one of Seth's great posts about what organizations can learn from Airports.
I think he's spot on. My own organization has a long way to go before it's truly "transformational". However I can attest to the fact that most of his observations are really not part of where I work.
A good thing.
But it got me reflecting on the lack of business travel for my role over the recent period. Budget constraints played a large part in the reduction of my business travel over the last 12 months - analogous to the patent expiry cliffs we've been dealing with, my drop in travel was much like a cliff - oodles of flights with over 70k miles per year down to ZERO.
Over the last 12 months I have several cases where I specifically avoided a plane ride and the airports because of the shear level of dissatisfaction, coupled with the non-value added extra travel time and exorbitant air fairs. I wish our rail system in the US was like that of Europe. Perhaps it would serve to transform airports and airlines to be about delivering delight and happy and relaxed business and leisure travelers. You know a boost to the US passenger rail capabilities could create a "transform or die" environment for the airlines and airports. The biggest losers with this possibility would be the aircraft suppliers and airlines, whom we could expect would expend serious lobbying funds to thwart a railway comeback rather than invest in a better passenger experience.
Rather than transform to remain relevant they would fight to keep things as is. Of course the optimist in me hopes for some disruptive innovator to come along and give the airline industry no choice but to transform or die.
I think he's spot on. My own organization has a long way to go before it's truly "transformational". However I can attest to the fact that most of his observations are really not part of where I work.
A good thing.
But it got me reflecting on the lack of business travel for my role over the recent period. Budget constraints played a large part in the reduction of my business travel over the last 12 months - analogous to the patent expiry cliffs we've been dealing with, my drop in travel was much like a cliff - oodles of flights with over 70k miles per year down to ZERO.
Over the last 12 months I have several cases where I specifically avoided a plane ride and the airports because of the shear level of dissatisfaction, coupled with the non-value added extra travel time and exorbitant air fairs. I wish our rail system in the US was like that of Europe. Perhaps it would serve to transform airports and airlines to be about delivering delight and happy and relaxed business and leisure travelers. You know a boost to the US passenger rail capabilities could create a "transform or die" environment for the airlines and airports. The biggest losers with this possibility would be the aircraft suppliers and airlines, whom we could expect would expend serious lobbying funds to thwart a railway comeback rather than invest in a better passenger experience.
Rather than transform to remain relevant they would fight to keep things as is. Of course the optimist in me hopes for some disruptive innovator to come along and give the airline industry no choice but to transform or die.
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