Have you ever seen a business set their people up for failure? Have you seen them set their people up to be crushed? Let me tell you a story.
Before the pandemic, I went to a conference in Las Vegas and had a 6 PM return flight. I returned my rental car and learned my flight was delayed. There was no text or email from the airline and the flight was still on-time online.
Our gate was moved three times before the plane arrived. The flight crew, who was supposed to turn around and take us to St. Louis, exited with luggage in tow after hitting their maximum hours.
For hours the board was not updated as if the plane was still leaving at nine even though it was well past nine. The gate crew hid in the secure area between two layers of glass on their phones for two hours before facing 239 angry customers. Six hours later a flight crew was found and two hours later we finally left Las Vegas.
Frontier Airlines killed their staff that night. It appeared as if nobody made any effort to replace a flight crew when it was known at 2 PM, before they even flew to Las Vegas, that they would hit their maximum allowed hours and be done for the day. No meal vouchers were printed until the last minute. Communication was awful with the passengers. Not that flying on Frontier is a positive experience to begin with. I will never fly Frontier Airlines again.
The gate crew was going to get the brunt of it from the passengers that night regardless. But, being out on a limb with Frontier sawing it off behind them was a killer.
I remember a gate agent printing out meal vouchers responding to my question, “I’m just here for a paycheck.” I don’t want to work with someone just there for the paycheck.
I try to set my coworkers up for success and hope they do the same for me. Frontier did not set their people for failure. They set them up to be crushed.