My experience of course limits me to the Indian geographical boundaries unlike a multitude of my friends and colleagues. And something that I observed on my way to Delhi from Pune on the flight, made me really wonder what drives organisations to gradually or in some case inherently have inefficiencies in service. And by quality one would ideally like to think of JRD's penchant for exemplary service standards - from the air hostesses to service on board, to punctuality. JRD'S biography, Beyond The Last Blue Mountain, is a fantastic testimony to process excellence on a personal as well as business level. And it has a good part dedicated to his favourite business Air India.
When we started travelling by air almost a decade ago, our travels were pampered by jet airways. I remember on one of the flights from Mumbai to Kolkata in the January of 2003, the menu had an introductory note by Jiggs Kalra and the menu was designed by him. In the last 2 years, the airline has definitely had a tremendous decline in service standards. Incidentally on the flight today morning, we had a bun in the menu which was overheated and hence next to rubbery though burning hot! And topping it I had an interesting companion in form of two small cockroaches (!!), 35000 ft high in the sky and without a ticket and I was feeling cheated since I paid almost 10k of my company's precious profits!
Thankfully we were still on time for our meetings. And that brings me to the other end of the spectrum of inefficiencies. I had the good misfortune of flying one of my most avoidable options, Go Air, which I frankly do not comprehend where it is going. The 3 times that I have flown on this airline, 2008, 2012 and 2013, have been interesting. The airline is never ever on time. My mean count of delay has always been in hours and surprisingly I get an intimation generally at least 6 - 7 hours before the actual flight. That makes me wonder if the entire team of this company starts on a handicap on time in the morning! And probably gone are the days when a service company used to apologise and inform the reason (how so ever stupid) to a customer. It's take it or leave it with some of them. My first trip on this airline was hilariously painful. On my way back from Kochi in 2008, the flight seemed to be about 2 hours late. After much prodding the staff was kind to inform that the incoming flight from Bangalore was delayed (2 hours is a little preposterous). After its August arrival and turn around, we were herded to the flight and we realised that the air conditioning was off and even the air blowers / circulatory were not working. People started making noise and requesting for the blowers to be switched off and this was followed by wailing children due to the suffocation. But guess the Bombay Dyeing group recruits hardy staff who can face challenges and maintain a stoic semblance in the face of crisis. Take off was a veritable discotheque environment with flashing lights (due to defective fluorescent lights) and vibrating appendages. And once we were airborne, the air conditioning was probably linked to the outside ambience to give the passengers a feel of space. It became bone chilling cold and we landed shivering in Mumbai. The last two trips has been a significant improvement since they have got new Airbus A 320s. But the punctuality meter has been probably trashed somewhere over the Indian Ocean along with Bin Laden. And a funny observation: while a large chunk of my co passengers are from the Maratha heartland and probably would comprehend Hindi, the crew insists on speaking only in English ... And a tad bit accented.
And in the extremes are the examples of extremely efficient airline in blue.
And as I cruise back home and contemplate the reaction on ringing the door bell home at the wee hours, I can't help but try to comprehend what drives organisations to inefficiencies? Is it complacency about the market? Or is it the sheer DNA of ineptitude? And in the cases of the later, how does the organisation exist in the market? Is it simply because of the high demand vs the low supply of seats in the air? Or is there something more to it? What would have been the driver for Jet to gradually degrade its service quality Or make the fares extremely uncompetitive? My experience of using the other LCCs - Indigo or Spice jet has been extremely positive barring few rare instances. Better food, extremely efficient, good service and fantastic on punctuality.
My friends with B School degrees and in exotic sectors like business / strategy consultancy can actually throw some educated and valuable view on this paradox. On a lighter note, no power points and theories, since we may not comprehend them either ;)
1 comment:
Hello. And Bye.
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