Just what is Northwest Airlines thinking? An article in today’s MarketWatch indicates that NWA is canceling more than 100 flights PER DAY because they don’t have enough pilots scheduled for their summer ‘busy’ season.

I don’t want to diss NWA (they’re my airline of choice and I like them a LOT), but how does any organization the size and scope of a major airline fail to plan for these things?

The article states that “the problem stems from over-scheduling,” and goes on to say “The Air Line Pilots Association, which has a long history of tangling with Northwest management, has earlier accused [NWA] of setting an unrealistic schedule given the number of pilots it employs.”

I’m an NWA loyalist, and so I wouldn’t stop flying NWA just because I had a flight cancelled due to their poor planning—but I sure would be rather torqued. And since a majority of flyers are not loyal to one particular airline, it would take only one such screw up for a LOT of flyers to purposefully choose someone besides NWA in the future.

Managers, please take note: Planning is a fundamental process for people at your level in the organization!  Granted, that’s a bit preachy, but think about it—how can a company mess up its planning so badly? Dangerous is the perspective that goes, “oh, that can’t happen to us.”

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