You’re Making This Too Easy

If you’ve spent any amount of time reading this blog (which is kind of a far-fetched assumption, I realize, but stay with me) you’ve probably realized that I spend a lot of my time writing about business failures. This is partly because Institutional Failure was one of my research interests long before I ever realized I would go back to graduate school and research anything, but it’s mostly because this sort of story makes for interesting and snarky blog posts. Of course, if you really want to you can find something to sneer at in most business operations, because we (the observers) are working from the perfect knowledge of hindsight, whereas the people running the companies had only the imperfect knowledge of the moment when they made their decisions. That said, I still think the latest pet-related screw-up on the part of Delta Airlines has moved from petty theft into felony cruelty to animals territory…

You can find the original story here if you want to, but the facts of the case are clear enough. A customer paid Delta the required fees to have a hairless kitten (it’s a breed of cat that, as you’d probably guess, doesn’t have hair) shipped from Utah to Connecticut last week. The flight went smoothly enough, but after the plane landed the baggage handlers took over 50 minutes to offload the kitten – and the cargo hold of an airplane isn’t heated once the craft lands; neither are the baggage carts or the back end of baggage claim. As a result, an animal that has no protection from the cold (it’s hairless, remember) was left exposed to 7 degree temperatures for nearly an hour and eventually died from hypothermia…

Now, I don’t believe the owner is at fault here; when you pay someone to ship live animals for you there is a reasonable expectation that they will still be in that condition when they arrive. I don’t know if criminal charges against the baggage people would stick either, although if I were the district attorney responsible for that airport I would definitely be in the middle of finding out right now. And as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m not sure the owner will be able to bring suit in civil court, either, although if I was an attorney admitted to the Connecticut Bar, I’d take the case just to find out. But even if there are no criminal or civil repercussions of this action, it’s still one of the most completely bloody stupid things I’ve ever seen, and it’s going to make things worse for the airline every time a scruffy blogger picks up the story and decides to mock them – which doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon, given the post you are currently reading…

You see, the problem is that air travel has become a commodity product. There was a time when people would select their airline out of brand loyalty, claiming that TWA had the most comfortable aircraft, while National Airlines had the best cabin crews, Pan-Am had the most International experience, and Western Airlines had the best food and Hughes Air West had the best prices (if nothing else in particular). But all of those airlines have long since gone into the dumpster of history, and most people today are choosing their tickets by price, convenience, or frequent flyer programs – unless they need to transport an animal or are easily offended by stories like the one today, in which case they will avoid Delta like the plague…

The simple fact is, Delta can not afford to keep alienating large groups of the general public with this sort of screw-up. Even people who don’t like cats (and there are a LOT of people out there who DO like cats, very much) are going to look askance at this sort of thing; after all, if they can’t even take care of a kitten for a few hours, what are they going to do to your belongings during such a flight? Delta can not win against low-cost fliers like Southwest Airlines in a commodity market, and the more episodes like this one they produce, the harder it will be for them to maintain parity at the same price level. Which is good for Southwest, Greyhound and Amtrak, but bad for bloggers like me…
The truth is, I work hard at finding these stories and mocking them for the entertainment and edification of my readers (assuming I have readers), and sometimes I hesitate to even write about stories like this one – because they’re making it too easy…