By, Captain Savas Uskent Airline Commander and Aviation Author November 15, 2006 Copyright © 2006 ATP/CFI, Next Generation Boeing 737/800, Boeing 737/400-500, Airbus 310/300- 200, BAe146/100-70 (Avro-100), Challenger 601-3A, Learjet-60, Learjet- 55C, Learjet-35A, Aerospatiale Caravelle SE210 http://www.oocities.org/uskent uskent@yahoo.com You may either use the following article intact or in extracted forms, in your printed or inter/intra net publications freely "solely for training and/or teaching purposes" conditional on to include the by-line. Otherwise use of the contents of this article either for commercial or non-commercial purposes is not permitted due to copyrights. For the latter, further permission by the author is required. Requests can be made by email. PARTICIPATIVE AIRLINE MANAGEMENT IS LIMPING ALONG... CRIPPLED AVIATION MANAGEMENT Very complicated, very sophisticated, very fragile, very responsive... If you are in aviation business, you have to live with these notions... As Participative Airline Management is limping along; Hazard Risks, Operational Risks, Financial Risks, Strategic Risks; are not all you have to face with... Aircraft/property damage, general liability, legal risks, 3rd party liability, employee compensation, local/international politics, terrorism/sabotage, adverse weather conditions, strikes, air-cargo losses... Maintenance quality and reliability, scheduling and control systems flaws, crew quality and planning defects, proper accounting, key manager planning, possible national and international regulation changes, e-commerce risks... Customer demand/defections, fare wars / market battles, union disagreements, ineffective planning, mergers, unexpected expenditure overrun... Accounting or tax law changes, interest rate fluctuations, fuel prices, recession risks, currency exchange rate fluctuations, aircraft acquisition, share value losses, liquidity, revenue management and etc... Risk management always comes before crisis management... If you cannot manage your risks, you shall most probably end up in some kind of crisis. As managing risks beforehand is much easier than managing an erupted crisis, why to end up in a crisis? Usually, airline brass tends to see risk management in terms of hazards only. Significant attention is given to safety and security issues. Hedging some financial risks may also be added to the above precaution. Their approaches may be successful to an extent, nevertheless, more aggressive techniques and a wider perspective would greatly increase the benefits. You can call Participative Aviation Management (PAM), as one of the most effective techniques to improve risk management capability concurrently increasing profitability and efficiency. Even though participative management trend was first brought into organizational theory in the beginning of 1990s, aviation industry has not been successful to have its share so far. Organizational theory of aviation business from my point of view should at least be partially integrated with the management theory of participation. If properly applied, lower costs, improved quality, elimination of unnecessary layers of management, diversification into non-flying businesses in an attempt to reduce strategic risks and the volatility of earnings shall be within easy reach topped with improved morale. Remember, a flawed core-company strategy is capable of causing its own demise. "Participative Aviation Management" (PAM), subsumes a number of complementary and overlapping concepts, including flight work teams such as related flight crews, flight attendants, technical shifts, dispatch officers, training officers and you name the rest with worker empowerment. PAM encompasses a continuum of practices that start with modest employee-involvement programs and build to airline/aviation structures where employees manage themselves. PAM fosters commitment by giving employees significantly more responsibility and more autonomy over how they do their jobs while enabling them to deal with more difficult and engaging jobs. Apparently, committed employees shall be more responsible, pay closer attention to quality versus quantity concept and be finding solutions to possible problems on the road map for an efficient operation. Many aviation companies including major airlines say they have changed the way they manage employees, but few have done anything substantial. In some cases, aviation companies have experimented with participative management but have not implemented the system thoroughly. Some others have adopted modest employee-involvement programs; nevertheless have not taken the subsequent steps toward letting employees manage themselves properly. For me, if properly implemented PAM works so well. The question is, why are so few airline/aviation companies using it, even partially if not completely? The answer is; few chief executives have gotten personally involved in implementing PAM. When properly applied, PAM terrifies many middle managers with good reason. Many managers will lose their jobs as the PAM systems become widely applied. At the very least, PAM system forces managers to surrender a large measure of their authority and handle subordinates in new ways, a prospect few manager find appealing. Therefore, they sabotage PAM system unless the impetus for the implementation of the system is forcefully managed from the top down. I personally know some very good people as middle managers who have piloted this in large airline corporations, have ended up being very unpopular, and eventually have lost their jobs for succeeding with PAM programs. On the other hand, the apparent difficulties in converting an airline organization to participative management should not seem intimidating or daunting. It should be succeeded somehow by some good people anyway. PAM requires fostering total team participation with full open ideas, creating a non-threatening innovative atmosphere and empowering all the personnel to contribute and manage the system. Even though those may sound a bit stilted, they are minimum requirements for converting to PAM. Another ideal piece of jargon in PAM system is "ownership of the process". Again, the underlying thought here is that employees become much more committed when they have a role in achieving an efficient and profitable operation. As they own it, they will have a stake in seeing that it works. The first step in fostering the feeling of ownership is to make each employee a shareholder of the related company. Even a small share via stock market if available would be helpful. In that way, a related company's share value gains or losses would mean a lot for the employees... Second step is the training and reorganization. In PAM system, work teams are usually self-managing in the sense that members decide among themselves who does a specific job. As an assigned work team of flight schedule, let us first consider flight crews, as they are the bullets of the gun. In accordance with the international (ICAO, JAR etc.) and national regulations Pilot in Commands are responsible of everything and authorized with almost unlimited power. However, this is a science fiction. If you, as a captain, observe the rules, and obeying these rules causes your corporation to lose a cent, you are in deep bog. PAM is crippled right at the beginning. In PAM system, captains are truly authorized with what they are powered with regulations. The Captains are Captains because they are trusted, trained properly and assigned, then they should be respected accordingly without being threatened to be dismissed from the company. As they are terrified and blocked by sometimes middle and sometimes top-airline brass, PAM system is the only way to provide for necessary confidence so that they can freely perform their duties via their way, most probably via the safest way... In PAM system, you can subsume; flight crews, related shift personnel of dispatch or operational control center (OCC) and technical AOG center, in the same work team. Nowadays widely used by many airlines, "jetliner technical release by flight crew" concept is a part of PAM system and works well... Technical assistance to flight schedules can be provided efficiently by widely authorized shift leaders that would have to be cross talking his team in PAM system. Absenteeism would be not possible for any of the mechanics in PAM system due to appealing share holding and cross-policing features of the system. Aviation management is crippled without the implementation of proper participative techniques... Let aviation soar and survive, be forever appealing and lucrative... Boost your efficiency with participative aviation management... As an entrepreneur, let your employees feel that they have a stake in their company's future... By: Captain Savas Uskent Commander Pilot and Aviation Author Copyright © 2006 http://www.oocities.org/uskent uskent@yahoo.com About the Author: A Comdr Pilot in a Major Airline with ATP and CFI licenses. Regarding the big jets has been type rated on; A310, B-737/800, B737/400-500, BAe 146, LR JET-60, LR-55, LR-35, CL-60, SE-210, Grumman'sS-2. Served as an international corp jet flt dpt mgr and chief pilot on top of a naval aviation career. Graduate of Naval College and Jet trng schl, followed by successive major trngs. School of Journalism enhanced his writing proficiency. |
 |
 |
|