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Never Give A Sucker An Even Break. Just Tell ‘Em What They Want To Hear.
In the meantime, doing a bit of research, I’ve discovered that W.C. Fields provided some rock-solid advice and observations that apply to today’s traditional approach to air service development.
The Strategy: Keep ‘Em Baffled & Away From Reality. Apparently, Mr. Fields would recognize the M.O. of some of the usual suspects.
Programs like milking airports year after year with zero-result studies, presentations, market reports, and the like, most of which sidestep the fact that today, it is internal airline planning that almost unilaterally is driving air service shifts. He described it accurately:
“If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.”
Don’t ever mention the effects of things like actual airline strategies, changes in airline fleets, alternative consumer airport options, the difference between ULCC and network/hybrid airlines or other pesky facts.
Don’t provide a clear and decisive plan for the future, founded on economic truth.
Keep’em baffled with mushy promises.
Advice To Airports: If It Doesn’t Work, Hey, Maybe Consider Not Doing It, Anymore. W.C. also had advice that some of today’s small communities are now starting to tumble to.
“If at first you don’t succeed, try try again. Then quit. No sense in making a damn fool of yourself."
This sagely advice was brought home recently, when a small community discovered that they’d spent well over three hundred thousand dollars in the past few years “try-trying again” with the perfunctory consultant voodoo. They just noticed that the promise of “luring” more carriers was “bull.” No results.
Apparently, they just now tumbled to the fact that other than a pack of invoices, lovely “market studies,” and maybe several trips to the High Mountain of speed date meetings, they have bupkus to show for the money.
The open question is whether the community involved has learned anything about the realities of airline economics. One thing is clear, they’ve dumped the equivalent of building a couple of T-hangars into a fantasy vapor hole with nothing to show for it.
If true air service trends were addressed, other futurist programs could have been explored. The community never had been honestly appraised of how they needed to plan for a very different airline environment.
In another case, a small airport, struggling to retain a couple of regional jet flights a day, and obviously trapped in a similar pay-for-jive program, was confidently advised that (probably unbeknownst to any airline) they would eventually be getting 737 service, replacing the 76-seaters that were barely making the nut.
The reason, the eager airport was reportedly told, was that a 737 didn’t cost much more to fly than the small jets.
You betcha. The definition of bull. Like, an airline is going take out flights operated by planes with ownership/lease costs based on maybe a $25 million valuation and bring in 737s that have about six times the ownership costs, around $100-120 million.
That alone isn’t just slightly higher. Neither will be fuel burn, maintenance cost and crew compensation. But it’s the latest pap to keep the “mark” on the line.
This type of jive is fixin' to be bulldozed by the emerging shifts in airline operating economics.
The Fleet Cavalry Is Coming. The core issue is that with new applications of enhanced-mission fleets, from 9-seat to 150-seats, there are huge changes coming that defy traditional ASD thinking.
No, it won’t be universally comfortable. But it is on the horizon that most of rural America actually can be air-knitted back into connectivity with the rest of the world.
It doesn’t mean that every small community will have commercial service at the local airport. But connectivity will increase regionally, and with new narrow-body airliners like the A321XLR, secondary commercial airports will see service not dreamed possible ten years ago.
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