Flight Delay

If you work at Weeks Group, you will travel a lot. For some that may sound sort of romantic. To many it is a tragedy. In my effort to cope, I try to think of it as just another reality.

However, circumstances sometimes make that difficult to do. In each of the last two weeks I have had to deal with ground stops in Atlanta. The first forced an unplanned, unproductive, overnight stay. It was awful to see how mean-spirited some stranded travelers could be. One man (a jerk) got in the face of an airline worker who was trying to help him and treated her like she had caused the bad weather for the sole purpose of irritating him and him alone.

The second delay wasn't quite as bad. While waiting for late arriving equipment, the flight crew for my plane sat next to me in the gate area. I overheard a pilot telling the other crew members that weather was moving in and that he hoped we could get out ahead of it.

Push back from the gate was 30 minutes late. On the taxiway, the pilot announced his observation of the weather radar, his hope to take off ahead of it and that we were 60th in line for takeoff. After a while of inching forward, the engines shut down, and the captain announced the weather had forced the stop of inbound and outbound flights.

In the two hours that we sat there, I wondered what value I might make of the delay. The first thought I had was that it was just another circumstance affecting my business. No matter how good or bad the circumstance, my role as manager (as well as living person) is to react to the circumstance in the best way I can. My dad would say “roll with the flow.”

Of all the things I've learned from years of air travel, learning not to be frustrated by adverse circumstances has helped most. This is not to suggest that we embrace adversity but that we try to keep our focus and balance in spite of it. We have adversity to deal with in our industry, but keeping our focus and balance will let us have a greater chance of drawing some value from it.

Another thought that occurs in these crummy situations is not to waste energy with an unproductive response. There seems to be a daily limit of personal energy. Choosing to waste it by trying to change circumstances that we can't control is an option, but that is not productive. It is better to use the daily ration of energy on a positive reaction to the circumstances.