Punctuality: How Airlines Can Improve On-Time Performance

oriented approach. Our experience
is that it is important to study the
perfect days on a regular basis to
better understand the causes of
delays.
Reaching Agreement
on Delay Causes
Once all the facts have
been collected, it is of
utmost importance to
reach agreement amongst all the
key parties involved on the root
causes of the delays.
12
Exhibit 8. Solving the Delay Problems
Source: Booz·Allen & Hamilton
Resources, capacity and infrastructure
Process design and optimization
Empowerment, motivation and discipline
— Monitoring/statistics
— Policies and procedures
— Punctuality incentives
Regardless of the method of
analysis used, the results must
identify problem areas, root causes
and their order of magnitude.
It is important to spend time on
this effort until a common understanding
of the problems is reached,
otherwise most of the impact
of the analyses on future performance
will be lost. This is because,
without this consensus,
the search for solutions will continue
in fruitless circles. Management
and staff will dig deeper into
their trenches. If they stick too defensively
to their individual truths
and perspectives during the process,
there will be no real commitment
and driving force to change.
Solving the
Delay Problems
As soon as the root causes
are visible and agreed
on, the path to remedying
them is usually clear and the
different improvement options can
be evaluated. These options typically
fall into two categories—
internal measures and supplier
related measures (exhibit 8).
1 Internal measures 2
Supplier related measures
Service level agreements
— Not only “what to deliver”…
— …but “when to deliver”
Operational planning
and interface design
Monitoring and feedback
Incentives and penalties