Pax I too have lost my way a little with this thread. I totally get where you are coming from though
"Management thinking of airlines" struck a cord with me because the "thinking" of my managers is sometimes very different to my reality on board a plane as an SCCM. At all times safety is my #1 priority.
I'm met with many situations where I have competing company priorities. At my mob this is usually safety, profit and on time performance (OTP).
Hypothetical example is the night Ibiza. It's running on time and is full of young party goers who have already had a drink or few in the terminal. They are also anxious to get started on the bar on board which is very lucrative for the company and the CC......we can earn loads of commision on these flights and the company's profit per seat rockets so management is happy
A few (say a party of 10) start kicking off on the ground. They get off and if we have to call the Police to do this we do. There goes our OTP and all the profit per seat we might have got from this lot in the interests of safety. If this happened in the air we would divert.....Simples!! Safety would be the #1 priority here
That is why I also get where
F3G is coming from on this. It is the priority at the time that drives decisions.
If I make a decision based on
safety vs
profit vs
OTP I have to justify this to my managers via a Cabin Safety Report which is signed off by the Captain. Even then sometimes I'm called in for a "chat" to talk about why I took the decisions I did to a CC manager.
F3G I've never worked as a management consultant but I have dealt with consultants outside aviation as a Manager. What is said to outside scrutiny/consultation by managers is sometimes different to reality for the people at the sharp end. That is why i did not doubt your post in any way or was I surprised at what you said re management behaviour.