Let me introduce Board Notes.
On a regular basis, AERO Board members are going to share their thoughts, adventures, advice and counsel in this space. I hope you find these notes interesting and useful to your daily life.
Let me start our first Board Notes with a question: What constitutes a crisis?
Recently, we lost power in a major portion of our terminal here at George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) in Houston. Everything was down. I saw that as a crisis. Bag systems down. Gate agents with blank computer screens. Emergency lighting directing folks to exits.
Our airport leadership looked at the same situation and saw the crisis quite differently.
“You mean BOTH Starbucks are down without power?”
That was a crisis in their mind – no hot coffee. And, while I am sure they were making the remark somewhat facetiously, I also understood what they meant. How this power failure impacts travelers is the way we should look at it. If they can’t get coffee, check a bag or have an agent look up their flight at a gate, they will not be happy. This is the real problem. The power is the enabler to the solution, not the solution itself.
Much like FEMA has their “Waffle House Index” to gauge the severity of natural disasters, now we have one here. I’m calling it the “Starbucks Index.”
As you look at your portfolio of “worst case scenarios,” are your crisis plans only looking at the addressing the enablers or making sure to provide the solutions for customers, employees and stakeholders?
What constitutes your crisis and are you ready to address the solutions?
(Frank Ciaccio is the Director of Public Safety and Emergency Management for the Houston Airport System (HAS) and chair of AERO)
