Terrorist Plot Foiled!

That was the headline. Great news!

What follows pales in significance to how well government agencies cooperated around the world to foil a deadly plot of massive proportions. But it contains useful lessons and holds mismanagement accountable...

The nature of this plot required British Airways and Heathrow to issue a "no carry-on luggage" policy. Perfectly understandable, of course.

The bad news? The total zero think-through with which the policy was conceived, and total lack of respect and honesty in how it was implemented. Done properly, passengers could, should and would have been "processed" and sent home faster than ever.

It was not done properly.

As always, though, there is a silver lining. This is a business Web site. So there are lessons for companies, both large and small, in this story. (And, as angry customers are wont to do, I get to vent. That in itself is a business lesson -- word tends to "get out" nowadays.)

British Airways and Heathrow put on a real-time business clinic on how to completely and totally get it wrong. Something run this badly only happens through sheer incompetence, total disrespect for clients, or both...

1) Lesson #1a

If you respect and care for your customers, communicate with them in clear language, not cover-your-ass policies such as "we don't insure valuables." People travel with laptops. Vacationers bring valuables. Deal with it. And a corollary to this lesson...

Lesson #1b

Trust your customers. They are grownups. They can deal with intelligent, firm policies.

Customers should have been informed about carry-on luggage through the Net, through all travel touch points, and all the media. The message should have been clear and clean -- "all carry-on luggage is banned and will go into the hold." And don't just list exceptions rather vaguely -- tell customers to arrive with their exceptions already put into plastic bags.

Then talk to them. Tell them that your infrastructure is pushed beyond the limits. And therefore, the customer must be responsible for "getting it right." And if they get it wrong at security, they will be turned away for the day, rebooked for another day.

Instead, customers arrived totally unprepared and mostly uninformed, ready for someone to sort it all out for them. This was one huge bottleneck.

(Speaking of bottles, don't tell mothers that they will be required to "taste" babies' formula. One, it makes no sense. Two, it provides no guidance.)

2) Lesson #2

Be helpful. Suggest alternatives, such as...

1) FedEx all of your baggage home (we did this), or at least whatever is valuable. Heck, go above and beyond that and reimburse people up to $200 to do so.

2) Suggest they extend their vacation to another European country by train. Provide the free train and re-book the return air.

3) Lesson #3

Empower your employees. They are smarter than you think.

My wife and second daughter were unable to enter Terminal 4 despite the fact that they had no luggage (everything was FedExed home). She had nothing on her, aside from travel documents.

One employee was almost smart enough to use her head and to let someone with not an ounce of baggage into the terminal, when another rushed over with a "heavens no." She was forced to "queue" with thousands of people in the rain who had not even dealt with the whole luggage issue yet. That brings me to...

4) Lesson #4

Don't tell your employees to lie.

My wife was told to "relax, just wait" in the crowd of people. She was told that she'd "be called when her plane was going to take off." That is what everyone was told.

It was all lies. It was "herd control," pure and simple.

Then she was told that her flight, BA 45, was cancelled.

Also lies.

I flew home via Air Canada and BA 45, that very flight, arrived 15 minutes before we did. With many empty seats. The people who should have been sitting in them had been outside the terminal all day.

My wife confronted BA with that lie, the next day, after a horrible night's non-sleep. She was told that they were instructed to lie or else there'd be riots outside Terminal 4.

Well, if British Airways and Heathrow respected their customers, had put smart policies in place, had been helpful, had empowered their employees, and had been honest, none of this had to happen. In fact, based on my own experience (below), it should have gone faster than the typical North American airport check-in.


President, SiteSell.com

P.S. My own experience...

My other daughter and I arrived at Terminal 3 for an Air Canada flight home. The lineup was impossibly long. I finally found an honest Heathrow Information person who admitted the line was merely crowd control and that we'd be called when our flight time was close. I watched the monitor...

Our flight finally appeared on the screen. Its status steadily advanced, including mention of Gate 26. I pointed this out to the information guides and they said, "ignore the monitors."

Repeatedly, I was told to ignore the monitors. But more and more, the monitor sure seemed to know what it was doing, reporting the typical advancing stages of an impending flight.

Finally, I refused to say still. I told a guide to get us through. He started calling people for that AC flight. And then lost us. Another agent led us to the real lineup, "security." Again, we were told we had lots of time, now that we were in the security line. Finally, we pushed to the front as the gate was closing.

Once you reach this step, you get a quick body patdown (which would never have caught anyone seriously bad, by the way), you pick up your little plastic bag with your travel documents, and run like crazy to catch your plane. I realized, right then... The bottleneck was the total lack of process before that! There was no need for any of this pain.

The security check was actually far quicker than a "non-alert" security check, where you have to unload your laptop, cameras, pockets, etc. There was none of that, no wands, nothing to put away "on the other side."

Just pick up your plastic bag and run like heck.

I told Air Canada not to leave (they were ready to push back) because 20 more people would be close behind.

It turns out those airport monitors were perfectly accurate. The AC pilot announced apologies, but there would now be an additional wait for 20 more passengers.

That Air Canada flight would have left with empty seats if we had stayed with the sheep who were swallowing all the lies. My guess is that they were probably believing the same type of lies from Heathrow.... "Nope, no more for your flight in sight."

Air Canada was great, but they were on the other side of the security check.

British Airways? Heathrow? We'll never use you again. I'd rather access the U.K. (which we love) through mainland Europe than ever give you my business.

Learn to deal with your customers honestly, clearly, generously, openly, and even firmly (for those who can't arrive prepared)... like the adults we are.

Follow-up: The news is leaking out to the media. Stories abound now about how planes are arriving half-full at their destinations. Why? Because the passengers are standing outside in the pouring rain. British Airways, Ryan Air and others are furious at how this was bungled by the BAA (the British Aviation Authority, which is responsible for air transportion in Britain). They seem not to have had much say in the matter.

Through all of this, the employees on the ground were amazing. Some obviously knew that they had been given terrible policies to enforce. But they never lost their tempers or stopped trying to be as helpful as possible. It's just that they were not given much (i.e., good policty) to work with. Kudos to all of them.

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