Seeing all the media coverage over the holidays about airline travellers in Europe (particularly in the U.K., France and Germany), I was left wondering…hadn’t they learned their lesson about crisis planning in April?  Didn’t their lack of preparedness – and obvious lack of crisis management planning – when Iceland volcano erupted cause them to take stalk and do some serious crisis management planning?!?!?   If anything, the volcano incident should have revealed a weakness in – or perhaps absence of crisis management plans by the airlines and airports, and triggered quick action to focus on crisis management planning.

Granted, a volcano erupting is hard to plan for – and might generally not fall into one of the categories a company would plan for in developing a crisis management plan – but surely severe weather (especially with global warming at play) is a pretty basic scenario to plan for.  When will they learn?!?!   It’s insanity at play as they do the same thing over and over again (i.e. are unprepared), yet expect a different result.  

As someone whose travel plans were thwarted in April thanks to the mighty volcano, I was very happy not to have made travel plans to be in Europe for Christmas this year!  Once was enough for me, but I’m sure many passengers fell victim to both “crisis” scenarios.

Hopefully this second crisis will have been enough to get the airlines and airports planning a bit more, and a bit better – for all of our sake.  As they say, three strikes and you’re out!  Will there be a third crisis that breaks the camel’s back and totally shakes customer confidence and satisfaction?  As a regular air traveller, I sure hope not!