This is an important point for QF to understand. I have very little hope that the decision makers will ever understand it though because there is nobody amongst them that has done it. No pilots or Engineers are included at the decision making level. As such they employ McKinsey to fix the problem…..no pilots or Engineers involved there either….crazy.
An important thing for QF to understand is that pilots and Engineers used to see it as a mark of pride to depart on time. They developed habits and practices over many years to mitigate possible delay factors, they would have their fuel order sorted on the previous sector so that they could file the order quick smart once a final weather check was done, they would be ahead of flight planning regarding changes to the TAF or curfew issues, they would be liaising actively with the CSM about calling boarding at specific times to absorb potential bottlenecks, they’d ensure all parties were across fail to boards as soon as possible to avoid delays waiting for bags to be offloaded, complex MEL’s ( although previously rare) would be read an understood in advance to allow normal departure times, plus another 100 nuanced actions that presented themselves in a normal day. They did all this even when being threatened with outsourcing etc.
Then slowly, it has dawned on most pilots that even with all of this non stop mental activity and resultant action, the system has decayed to such an extent that the aircraft are going to run late regardless due to a lack of investment and insight into what he activity ( airline ops) actually is. The managers making these mistakes are still treating them in the same old fashion, and the feeling of pride from departing safely on time is a mugs game.
I have noticed that I have subconsciously drawn back one step. I now get my sense of pride from operating as close to SOP’s as I reasonably can while providing the best customer and crew interaction/ leadership that I can in the circumstances. There are opportunities every single day now to take the edge off customer and crew frustrations through thoughtful PA’s , discussions and briefing sessions, I can’t take much of the frustration away, but I can at least provide one stable, calm and reliable element in amongst what is really an embarrassing industry to be part of.
So what does this mean for OTP? If other pilots have reacted anything like me, then OTP has slipped from being tucked tightly in behind safety, to a metric that is out of my control and ‘will be what it will be’ to a large extent.
So, congratulations managers, you had an incredible resource which made you millions and millions each year and that resource was ‘ constant striving for OTP by thousands of high quality and experienced human brains’. Those high quality and experienced brains are still there, but they aren’t working on your project anymore, they’ve switched their attention to simply ensuring the bare minimums of aviation safety are met.