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.

During that self-talk on the plane, it also occurred to me that I considered the “reaction” I might have. My reaction had been planed in advance. Experiencing delays at airports helps to develop the habit of planning a reaction to a possible delay. I do it by having a charged battery for my computer and phone, AC adapters, some projects to work on and materials to read.

In business, we often refer to the “reaction planned in advance” as a “contingency plan.” Contingency plans are invaluable ways of making the most of unplanned circumstances, whether they are with our business travel or the laws affecting our business. Even though we now expect a Medicare reimbursement cut in 2009, we should develop contingency plans for additional cuts.

In Atlanta there are four runways. Each can accommodate about one plane per minute, so the supply is two departures per minute and two arrivals per minute. When the demand is greater than the supply, a line forms. Sometimes the line is so long that planes burn too much fuel to reach their destination and are forced to return to a gate before taking off. That happened to my plane a couple of weeks ago.

In our industry, the legislative and administrative branches of our government have agreed to reduce the supply of DME providers that can serve Medicare beneficiaries. It will force many providers to wait for an opportunity to serve. In time that opportunity will come. Competitive bidding will ultimately result in an undersupplied market. That will allow those who have waited to enjoy the reward of participating in an undersupplied market.

In the meantime, resources must be used carefully. Providers must figure out how to be profitable with declining reimbursements, and how to penetrate and serve markets other than Medicare beneficiaries.

Wallace Weeks is founder and president of Weeks Group Inc., a Melbourne, Fla.-based strategy consulting firm. He can be reached at 321/752-4514 or by e-mail at [email protected].