Aviation – Some Sarcasm
Indian aviation has always offered more than transportation. It provides drama, suspense, political philosophy, corporate theatre and, occasionally, an aircraft that leaves roughly when the ticket says it will.
The growth of private airlines in India was once celebrated as proof that competition would transform air travel. New airlines arrived with bright colours, smiling cabin crews and advertisements suggesting that flying had finally become as easy as ordering tea.
The tea, as it turned out, was easier.
Over time, aviation gave us ministerial sermons, employee agitations, fare wars, fuel-price shocks, collapsing balance sheets and CEOs explaining that everything was proceeding according to plan—except revenue, costs, aircraft availability, passenger confidence and the plan itself.
Private aviation companies displayed remarkable entrepreneurial courage. Some also displayed the rare ability to underestimate fuel prices, overestimate passenger demand, misread currency movements and then blame customers for wanting affordable tickets.
One afternoon, I was discussing this subject with a colleague. He suggested that I write about it. Aviation is neither my professional turf nor my preferred recreational activity. I do not understand aircraft engineering, airport economics or why passengers stand up immediately after landing when the doors will remain closed for another fifteen minutes.
But perhaps one does not need to understand aviation to appreciate it.
After all, many people manage businesses without understanding customers, lead teams without understanding people and run meetings without understanding why the meeting exists.
So, with no technical qualifications whatsoever—a condition that has never prevented anyone from offering expert opinions—I decided to record a few observations.
1. Every Take-Off Is Optional. Every Landing Is Mandatory.
This is perhaps the most important principle in aviation. It is equally useful in business.
Organizations enthusiastically launch products, departments, transformation programmes and mobile applications. Launches are celebrated with balloons, presentations and photographs of senior executives pointing at screens.
Very few people discuss the landing.
A retail company may open twenty new stores because its competitors have opened nineteen. The expansion is called “strategic acceleration.” Six months later, when half the stores are struggling, management calls it “portfolio rationalisation.”
The take-off was photographed. The landing is handled quietly by finance.
Aviation reminds us that beginning something is a choice. Bringing it back safely is a responsibility.
2. Flying Is Not Dangerous. Crashing Is Dangerous.
Airlines understandably prefer to emphasise the first sentence.
Businesses do something similar. They tell employees that change is not dangerous, technology is not dangerous, competition is not dangerous and restructuring is not dangerous.
Technically, they are correct.
It is the careless execution, confused leadership and sudden disappearance of experienced employees that tend to create difficulties.
“Digital transformation” is not dangerous. Spending millions on software that nobody needs can be.
“Customer centricity” is not dangerous. Removing every human contact point and replacing it with a chatbot called AI may be.
“Cost optimisation” is not dangerous. Discovering that the person you removed was the only one who knew how the billing system worked can be surprisingly educational.
The danger is rarely in the idea. It is usually in the confidence with which the idea is executed by people who will not be present when it crashes.
3. It Is Better to Be Down Here Wishing You Were Up There…
…than to be up there wishing you were down here.
This sentence should be printed in every boardroom.
Modern management worships speed. Leaders are encouraged to move quickly, take bold decisions and disrupt something—preferably before lunch.
Caution is often mistaken for weakness. Anyone asking inconvenient questions is accused of lacking an “entrepreneurial mindset.”
But delay is not always failure.
Sometimes an aircraft remains on the ground because an engineer has noticed something important. Sometimes a business postpones expansion because the economics are not convincing. Sometimes a retailer refuses to stock a fashionable product because customers in that market do not want it.
Such decisions rarely receive applause.
No executive has ever appeared on a magazine cover under the headline: “Visionary Leader Decides Not to Do Something Stupid.”
Yet many disasters could have been prevented by somebody saying, “Let us remain on the ground for another hour.”
4. The Propeller Is a Large Fan That Keeps the Pilot Cool
How do we know? Because when it stops, the pilot begins to sweat.
Every organization has its own corporate propellers—systems, dashboards, consultants and elaborate processes that appear to keep management comfortable.
When the dashboard turns green, leadership relaxes. Nobody asks whether the numbers are accurate.
Retail stores experience this regularly. The sales report may show that inventory availability is excellent, while customers are standing in the shop asking for sizes that do not exist. The computer says the product is available. The shelf says otherwise.
Naturally, the computer wins.
Technology is often used not to reveal reality but to protect senior management from meeting it personally.
Still, there is some comfort in knowing that no aircraft has ever collided with the sky. The larger risk is colliding with the ground while admiring the altitude report.
5. A Good Landing and a Great Landing Are Different
A good landing is one from which everyone walks away. A great landing is one after which the aircraft can be used again.
This distinction applies beautifully to leadership.
Some executives leave an organization with impressive personal reputations. Revenues increased during their tenure, costs were cut and shareholders were pleased.
After they leave, the company discovers that employee morale has collapsed, customer trust has weakened, suppliers are furious and the leadership pipeline consists mainly of people updating their résumés.
The executive landed safely. The aircraft cannot be used again.
A great leader does not merely achieve results. A great leader leaves behind an organization capable of producing results without requiring constant heroism, fear or emergency repairs.
And when the landing is unusually rough, passengers may reasonably ask, “Did we land, or were we shot down?” Employees ask the same question after certain restructurings.
6. Pilots Learn from the Mistakes of Others
They have to.
Nobody can personally make every possible aviation mistake and remain available for the annual appraisal.
Businesses claim to value learning, but they often prefer learning only from success stories. Conferences are filled with speakers explaining how they built extraordinary companies. Fewer sessions are devoted to how ordinary companies were destroyed by executive vanity, uncontrolled expansion and decorative strategy.
Failure is praised in speeches but punished in performance reviews.
Employees are told to experiment, provided the experiment succeeds.
Management teams would learn more by studying failed stores, failed mergers and failed products than by repeatedly celebrating the one successful campaign that happened to go viral.
Wisdom is not merely experience. It is the ability to borrow experience from people who paid dearly for it.
7. Beware of Bonus Miles
Airlines reward loyalty with points. Customers collect them enthusiastically, later discovering that the points can be redeemed only on a Tuesday afternoon in a month with no public holidays, subject to seat availability and the alignment of certain planets.
Businesses also adore loyalty programmes.
Retailers offer points, coupons, cashback, memberships and exclusive benefits. The customer eventually needs a financial adviser to determine whether buying a shirt has earned him a discount, a voucher or merely another promotional message.
The real principle of airline rewards is simple: passengers should ensure that the number of landings equals the number of take-offs.
Customers should apply similar arithmetic elsewhere.
The number of promises should equal the number of deliveries. The number of leadership speeches should equal the number of visible actions. The number of customer-service commitments should equal the number of customer problems actually solved.
In most organizations, this calculation produces turbulence.
8. Great Judgement Comes from Experience
Unfortunately, experience often comes from bad judgement.
This is why seniority can be valuable. Experienced people have usually seen enough disasters to recognize one while it is still being introduced as an opportunity.
Yet businesses frequently remove experienced employees because they are considered expensive. They are replaced with younger, energetic professionals who are then asked to rediscover every old mistake at a lower salary.
The savings are immediate. The education costs arrive later.
A retailer may ignore an experienced store manager who warns that a product will not move in a particular location. A spreadsheet prepared at headquarters says otherwise. The stock is dispatched, displayed and discounted. Eventually, the store manager is asked to explain why it did not sell.
Bad judgement becomes experience. Experience becomes another presentation.
9. Secure Your Own Oxygen Mask First
During an emergency, passengers are instructed to secure their own masks before helping others.
This appears selfish until one realizes that an unconscious rescuer is of limited use.
The same principle applies to people, families and workplaces. Employees who are constantly exhausted cannot sustainably support customers, colleagues or organizations. Leaders who are emotionally unstable eventually distribute their instability through meetings.
Yet corporate culture often glorifies self-destruction.
People boast about sleeping four hours, skipping holidays and attending video calls from hospital rooms. Burnout is treated as evidence of commitment until it affects productivity, at which point it becomes a personal wellness issue.
Companies then organise a mindfulness webinar at 7:00 a.m.
Employees are advised to breathe deeply before returning to the conditions that made breathing difficult.
And, as the traditional aviation joke advises, when travelling with more than one small child, assist your favourite first.
Organizations already follow this rule. They simply call the favourites “high-potential employees.”
The View from the Window
Aviation is an extraordinary human achievement. It combines engineering, discipline, coordination and trust. Hundreds of people perform their roles correctly so that strangers can sit inside a metal tube at thirty thousand feet and complain about the sandwich.
Perhaps that is the deepest reflection aviation offers. Human beings quickly convert miracles into services and services into complaints.
We expect perfection from pilots, cabin crews, airport staff, businesses, governments and technology—while arriving late, ignoring instructions and placing oversized baggage into spaces clearly designed for a small handbag.
We are passengers in aircraft, employees in organizations and customers in markets. In every role, we want safety, speed, comfort, low prices, personal attention and no inconvenience.
Preferably all at once.
Aviation, like business and life, teaches us that turbulence is inevitable. Competence matters. Communication matters. Humility matters. And when something goes wrong, calm judgement is usually more useful than an inspirational slogan.
Most importantly, before celebrating how high we have flown, we should ask whether we still know how to land. Because take-offs attract attention. Landings reveal character.
