The Air France Question

There should be no doubt in anybody's mind about the airline I love the best in the planet. Not many people likes and and many more complain up and down and all the way around about it, but I can't but praise it. That wonderful, amazing, one-of-a-kind, sublime airline is no other than Air France. So it gets late often, what's the rush? They certainly pick up the speed up in the air! So they delay your luggage, it isn't like after crossing the ocean you are thrilled about carrying your overstuffed suitcases anywhere. So a plain crashed in the middle of the ocean and everybody died, shit happens, besides, it's not like they crash a plane every year, now do they? I love their onboard attention, their food, their movie selections, the leisure you feel up there and how all flight attendants smile at you are always ready to help you in any way they can. I don't mind any of the other things, but often even see them as indirect conveniences that make my life and my trip so much easier. Then, as Air France connects through Paris, spending some time there isn't either something I would just brush off my shoulder! Charles De Gaulle is my favorite airport by far (I speak some French and everybody is nice to me, so perhaps that's the reason), and Paris is certainly my favorite city in the whole planet (not that I have visited every city in the whole planet, but Paris is my favorite). A ticket with Air France is much more expensive than a ticket connecting the same destinations with other airlines, such as KLM, Iberia, Lufthansa, just to name a few, yet when the budget isn't so much of a deal, I always pick Air France. Maybe I could get there earlier if I went with KLM, or maybe I would do less stops if I go with Iberia, and maybe, maybe, maybe, but I keep on choosing Air France time and again.

You may say I love the feng shui I get on Air France (I read that on a Feng Shui book I was consulting to get ideas on how to better decorate my future home, given that it is small and I've a freaking lot of stuff - books mostly), but the fact is that I love the way I'm treated by the company, and if I have the dime, I gladly pay what they ask for that chance. I pay more to be treated kindly. I pay more to be around people enjoying their job, and giving away a wonderful, happy vibe. I pay more for smiles. I pay more for delicious food that has been selected carefully by people who know what's a real eating experience, and don't think that tooth paste between two sheets of notebook paper can pass for a sandwich. I pay for that, and I do it happily.

For a while now, I've noticed that year after year - usually by the end of it - the employees of the airline are going on strike. Flight attendants, now pilots, there was onw about maintenance workers, if I recall correctly, and I wonder, what the hell is going on? I've heard that the jobs at the airlines are no longer the wonderful experience they used to be but have been becoming more and more into ruthless lands of carnage and sweatshops. Airlines are falling, and no longer make it into the black, but as the months roll, they sink deeper and deeper into the red. The backs of smaller companies have already cracked and got crushed into bankrupcy - the latest I know of being Malév, the Hungarian airline - which pours more and more airline workers into the market, and putting more pressure on the airlines from every angle.

The question now is one: Money, and this is going the worst way possible. And sadly this is true for just about any company in the planet, in any industry there is. It's a fact that each time a company starts getting in trouble, the first thing they think of is to pull the income over the outcome, or in other words: create profit. There are two ways to do this: increase your income, by way of increasing your prices or making sure you sell more units... or both if you can pull that out. The other one is to reduce costs. Now, in the current market situation, probably increasing the price or even trying to increase the number of trips sold isn't much likely, so make pencil sharpening analysts (accountants and business administrators, maybe even a rouge economist or two), select to cut costs. That's okay, I mean, you need to get some earnings, go back to the black, and if you can't sell more, and make more money, try making the same money and producing it with less. It never ceases to amaze me, though, how each time these decisions are aimed at reducing the parts that are important for the service, and that's like shooting yourself on the toe.

The "smart" BAs (I refuse to acknowledge the existence of idiotic economists, so I'll pretend they aren't even people, because they should know better), pull out their massive books of leadership and crisis and administration, and decide to go on cutting in the inputs. Lower quality in foods, a cheaper catering service, reduce the replacement rate of parts, eliminate a meal, eliminate newspapers, magazines and other on board amenities and so on (I'm keeping the example of airlines, though I'm not saying this is what's happening with Air France! Hyne forbid! If I get KLM food on Air France, my world will collide). When that's not enough, they take the knife to the employees. Reduce wages, take away off-days, sick-days, cut contracts, eliminate rights and benefits... and then come the layoffs. These people safely locked away in their office buildings, can't possible understand how all of these cuts take away from the quality of the service, from the customer experience cutting actually on the one thing that makes it stand unique, that has earned a differentiating status and created loyalty among customers. Unhappy workers and crappy food along with crappy service - it's what you get for reducing the expense on quality (if all you care is money, then so your workers will care only about the money and will send the quality of your product down the sewer... not like you showed you care), and it will make you yet another gray brand in a pool of gray brands where one can disappear an nobody would notice.

Though mathematically and even economically it makes sense to cut costs when you can't raise your income, I've always wondered why in the fucking hell, if they are so bent on getting the company back on its feet, they don't cut the expenses where it affects less the product. Like, the wage of the CEO and all those on the top floor. How about in times of crisis you get read of a handful of middle  managers and slash the wage of the remaining ones so that all of them get the paycheck of a... flight attendant? If the flight attendant can make a living out of it, sure the CEO can as well! Besides, it would be only while the company gets on it's foot again. But that would be the day a bunch of managers do that, and why? Because just as they have the face to demand their workers to "make it for the team" and "accept the cut so that we all can keep our company up", they are too selfish and aren't willing to bite the bullet. They want to save the company as long as others do the saving, because they want to keep the "benefits they are entitled to".

Just take a look at the banking system in the United States four years ago: their world was collapsing, they were dragging the economy down with them, they claimed for help, people spoke in the news and anywhere in the TV willing to listen about how it was a problem of "everybody", how this was going to affect Everybody, and how Everybody needed to be saved with a bailout. They didn't cut expenses by cutting the over inflated wages and eliminating the obscene bonuses they awarded to their managers and top floor - as a matter of fact, once they've got their bailout, those where to first ones to get paid! - they took the knife to their customers and they smaller workers. If the 80% of middle managers in a bank where to be eliminated, and the wage of the CEO made equall to that of a teller, you could go to a bank and wait for the exact same amount of tellers to get your errands done. If you usually have 10 tellers at your local bank, and 100 customers, each teller takes 5 minutes per customer, you could be out in 50 minutes - more or less. If anything, certainly some issues would also take longer because there would be less managers stamping their signature on the paper to get it approved. Butm if you keep all the managers and the wage of the CEO and cut the costs by firing tellers, maybe even closing some branches, the you'll end up with 5 tellers attending to 200 customers, and you'd be in line for nearly 4 hours. You lose, the economy loses as usually the fired tellers would be more in number than the potentially fired middle management, and only the CEO and the top floor would be happy, specially because thy today work at a bank, and tomorrow at a technology company and they can't care less, all the care of is the check they cash.

The modern, liberal economical philosophy many praise these days are exactly about this: have the freedom to act whichever way that makes sure the top floor can keep milking the customers and the company until this collapses and they can go leech on the next. Liberal economy swears to be the answer to the economical crisis - which was brought to be thanks to their irresponsability, top floor thinking, thank you very much - and I wonder if they can produce the numbers that show how their methods have helped create real, decent jobs from which people can live with dignity. I mean real jobs like the ones you could find at the GM plants in the United States in the 50's-60's, where a wage could feed a family of four with a house in the suburbs, with a lawn, a dog and a white picket fence. I don't mean the current Foxxcon-like jobs where workers jump off the roof is desperation or die due to the unhealthy and insecure conditions.

How many little businesses have made it... from the total of little businesses started. Because you can say "Oh, 1000 made it last year", and it doesn't say a thing. It's different if you say that 1000 from 4000 started have succeeded, than saying 1000 from 1.000.000 made it. These are numbers sometimes should be sent when you are laying off people and telling them that the change is okay and they should try to make it on their own, start a new business and show them 2 or 3 "success cases", like that actually makes a difference.

So, when I see news about strikes, before I rush to the fed conclusion that these are ungrateful, spoiled workers, I can't stop thinking about all the fucked up decisions made by those with the numbers in their hands. The big speaches about organizational culture and profits... those are nothing but empty bullshit. Want organizational culture? Don't print out posters, but call on a general meeting all of your employees and tell them that costs need to be curbed, and the first ones biting the bullet are the top floor, taking on one wages of people who have no subalterns, and removing all middle managers - those who have the capability and are willing, will become regular workers like the rest of them, those who don't are leaving the company. Then tell them that if things don't get better by this time, you'll ask them to please bite the bullet as well. If you were to do that, you would be surprised at what your workers are able to do.