In corporate mergers and acquisition land transition periods can be difficult when they’re not managed with the appropriate level of planning and foresight. Northwest is based out of Minneapolis and when I moved here I started flying on them exclusively (which isn’t hard to do since most flights are through them anyway). The Northwest and Delta merger have led to a new credit card being issued to me, new logos here and there, lots of snail mail about how my miles will be handled (too much snail mail =’s white noise btw) and other than that, very little annoyance. It’s been a pretty smooth run thus far.
But of course, the devil, she lies in the details. I guess maybe I happened to fly on the wrong day (again). Last night our engine had a failure on the runway and we had to sit on the tarmac for a couple of hours. During those couple of hours the engine work kept everyone awake and annoyed. That has nothing at all to do with a merger transition issue does it? We would, after all, rather be on the ground wishing we were in the sky than be in the sky wishing we were on the ground.
Before we got off the ground, before the engine troubles, a passenger in the emergency row asked about how to work the door of the aircraft and about lifeboats or somesuch. Apparently most of the crew had no clue. Love that. The pilot (who I’m sure had better things to do ) ended up coming back and explaining it to the lady. She was very specific and a little annoying, but the crew should know about that type of thing. Apparently the aircraft is a Delta aircraft that has been moved into a Northwest flight and so it’s the transition’s fault – because of the merger and all…
The flight attendants were sweet as can be, but you should train staff to never blame the merger for the screw-ups. I was sitting in row 7. They were out of the Delta food menu by row 7, so the only things left on the menu were Pringles and trail mix. About five rows later they were out of Pringles, towards the back of the plane I think they were eating the Pringles cans from the people in the first couple of rows… Apparently the lack of food was because of the merger. They switched menus, didn’t know the correct capacity for the flight (which was full) and the menu they had on their carts was wrong – I suppose it was just meant to tease passengers…
If you can’t eat, drink. On the menu there is an American Express logo – and it says double points! Whoopee, there are plenty of calories on the drink menu. Takes 15 minutes for the flight attendant to answer the call that the couple next to me put in to her, but when she gets there I’m thinking, I’ll order something too. No dice! No American Express (especially not if the AmEx has a Delta logo I guess). But it says right here… No, that’s only for Delta flights. But you’re wearing a Delta uniform and the gate said Delta/NWA when I checked in… But what is the point of arguing… Apparently that’s the merger’s fault, and by the way, the delay in getting to the people next to me is that there are lots of annoyed people (which is indirectly the merger’s fault).
It’s also easy to blame the larger entity to try and feel better about a given situation. There are a number of different strategies that should be taken when mistakes happen. First and foremost, never sell out the company. If it’s a merger, it’s important for customers to think that they’re going to be with a better company than for them to loose faith. That means training on what to do in the event that there are issues. You can’t plan for every possible failure to your processes. But what you can do is keep your employees from selling out the larger organization in order to not feel the strain of the immediate situation. I don’t know what the right thing to do is, but I do know that you need to do something. Someone needs a plan, and that plan cannot be to blame either company, nor the transition from 2 companies to one.