CASE STUDY: CLOSED LOOP
“Remarkably, all this capability exists, and airlines could benefit from it today. What doesn’t exist is the collective will and leadership to bring it together.” ALTERNATIVELY…
The alternative might look something like figure 7.
Recursive rework reinventing wheels Fragmentation over cohesion Industry-wide digitisation and digitalisation at risk Figure 6
Statistics demonstrate that strategy is often confused, miscommunicated and not well executed by the airline industry. While that’s a bold statement, there are plenty of examples if anyone wants to ask. Imagine, though, a future where the industry provides high-level strategic leadership about operational nuance from which airlines can draw; delivering a lot of that non-proprietary, non-competitive stuff that Marcus discussed. Picture a suite of tools, exchange standards, data sharing and collaborative capability that enables the industry to support operational strategies and outcomes, and reduce the bottlenecks, delays and scarcity issues that we were all grumbling about not so long ago. Imagine the same tools supporting airline operational strategies, improving the integration of departmental processes and data within the airline and, crucially, with new partners in the likely wave of mergers and global alliances that COVID will produce. Picture too, that airlines can draw from a library of industry-based leadership, data, information and knowledge, easing the repetitive, extensive and expensive turnover of knowledge acquisition and capability replicated by every airline in precisely the same way, over and over again. Airlines would return knowledge to the industry in a symbiotic connection that frees it of scarcity driven efficiency drains and delivers more of the lowhanging efficiencies most think are gone… except they’re not. Remarkably, all this capability exists, and airlines could benefit from it today. What doesn’t exist is the collective will and leadership to bring it together. This could be a profoundly beneficial program that could reset IATA. Hello, Mr Walsh?
Perception over strategy The status-quo
n tio p gO hin t o oN D e Th Remember these?
Figure 7
We all want to get back in the sky as soon as possible. There’s no doubt it is the highest priority for airlines, but we think how that is done will be crucial, lest the industry jumps straight from the colloquial ‘frying pan into the fire’. Remember the other issues constraining industry efficiency from part one? So far, it seems perception management remains the focus for the road out of COVID, not the critical strategic outcomes required to rebuild the industry into a more robust, agile and resilient version of itself. Figure 7 represents the status quo. In project management, we call this the ‘do nothing option’. While it’s a legitimate and proper project tool, we have to decide as an industry when we contemplate looking back from 2029 whether ‘do nothing’ was in the industry’s best interests. We do a lot well, but there are some things we don’t. A lot of this discussion is
AIRCRAFT IT Operations • MAY-JUNE 2021 • 53
