Originally Posted by KAG
If you are a Mac donald's employee, forgetting the big mac sauce when preparing this hamburger will have very little consequences on the customer.
If you are an airline employee, forgetting to lower the gear may have huge and definitive consequences on the customer.
OK - I didn't expect anyone to take that comment literally ... however ... while the "big mac sauce" may have, as you say, very little consequence on the customer (unless he really likes big mac sauce), it will have also have very little consequence to YOU - at least for the time being. Not so with failing to lower the landing gear. Sure, the customer may have definitive consequences, but YOU will have arrived at the scene of the "happening" prior to the customer and have every bit as much as stake as the customer - perhaps more. But, my point was that businesses are in business, mostly, to make money - period. If you have a "better mouse trap" you can make money selling mouse traps. But, if you have an inferior mouse trap, you're going to lose your shirt if you stay in business - unless you have a dynamite sales pitch. If not, would it be fair to have the government raise the cost to purchase all mouse traps because you can't make money selling yours? Almost all businesses are like bathtubs with a lot of holes in the bottom of the tub. Most bath tubs (businesses) have only one source of water into the tub (source of income) - The faucet (the sales price of the product or service). When you have all sorts of holes in the bottom on your tub (costs of doing business - fuel, rental, purchases, salaries, insurance, etc., etc.), the only way to keep water in the tub (money in the business) is to ensure that the outflow (expenses) are not as great as the inflow (total price of products or services). It's called "bathtub 101." If you have robust competition, you're not terribly anxious to futs around with the income, lest you chase away your otherwise dwindling sources of income ... that leaves only the outflow for you to play with. Unfortunately, YOUR Outflow is almost always someone else's Inflow. Most markets can only stand just so many participants - even with some sort of governmental interference. If your company is one of the successful participants - you'll probably do OK. If your company is one of the ones who wants to break into that particular business - unless they can develop a niche that no one else is seeking or using - it is likely that your company will have a difficult time successfully managing the inflow vs outflow ... and, in my not-so-humble-opinion, having the government step in to rescue those kinds of companies is not only wrong, it is damaging to the entire business line. Sure, the government can do it ... and it might look to be successful for a while ... but eventually it will fail. They always have - throughout history.
Originally Posted by KAG
Making money whatever it takes doesn' t apply to the transport industry.
I wish you were right (I really do!) - and it used to be so. However, since the airlines have been managed by the "bean counters," they each have become mere businesses, just like hamburger stands. Inflow vs. Outflow. Nothing more. Nothing less. And as long as the decision makers are insulated from the successes or failures of their respective businesses, there isn't likely to be a change. When their tub runs dry, they move on to another tub in another venue. Welcome to life.