In response to the off loading incident involving my wife and my daughter’s classmate, officials of Cebu Pacific reached out to talk about the incident in order to address the matter. It turned out that a friend from my pre-media days; Atty. Ato Salud was connected with the airline so we set up a lunch meeting to talk shop and catch up. What took me by surprise was the presence of Cebu Pacific’s “new” COO or Chief Operations Officer Michael Ivan Shau. “New” because Mike Shau has been with the company in the past where he did the rounds working in various departments and then took time out for further studies. Upon his return, Shau stepped in to be the first non-foreigner to be at the helm.
The fact that Shau showed up for the meeting is indicative of what might be forthcoming changes in the way Cebu Pacific runs its business, and deals with its “problems.” In all the times I have written and complained about operational lapses at Cebu Pacific, no one ever met with me or adequately addressed matters. The best response I ever got was from the company’s spokesperson Charo Logarta who can only explain things because any remedial measure after that is “beyond her pay grade” or authority. In fairness to Logarta, she does her best to sort things out on the ground and on the phone. The interesting thing about meeting Shau and Salud is that our 2-hour plus conversation led to a better understanding of the industry, Cebu Pacific and the mutual realization that the company has become a victim of its own success.
People and companies all have dreams and goals they work at achieving, some small others gigantic. But as my column title suggests, we often focus too much on the doughnut and not the hole, which represents what follows after we achieve the goal. A typical mistake is failing to realize that you’ve reached the goal; that you have become big. Then there is the disastrous realization that you have not had time to plan or prepare for it. This is the situation that Cebu Pacific finds itself in.
There is no doubt that Cebu Pacific has succeeded in building up and establishing a competitor airline to PAL. CebuPac also redefined or defined the new business model and air travel in the Philippines. This was all based on the South West Airlines model of making air travel very affordable, fun and people oriented. The formula worked too well. Before they knew it, their numbers had doubled, tripled along with their routes both local and international. However, with growth comes pain. In an industry that is regulated and very dependent on government infrastructure and management, any airline will find its growth and operation stifled by limited runways, limited terminals and gates and stiff competition for space and under developed digital technology. Delays and discomfort are generally attributed to the poor and inadequate level of airports primarily in the NAIA complex, which on bad days causes a ripple effect of problems outwards to the provinces and beyond.
Then comes the inevitable stream of complaints and mistakes made by ground staff that adds to ruining the passenger’s experience. This too, is affected by being too big because “empathy” and customer service is compromised in compliance to “process” or systems. A key factor here is the fact that most airlines rely on a third party provider or another company to handle customers. While Cebu Pacific sells the promise of affordable, fun and people oriented travel experience, the third party provider does not. 1Aviation is all about documentation and processing and loading. There lies the big disconnect. When problems crop up, the usual stand or training given to personnel is not to be emphatic but to be careful, don’t make commitments, don’t admit fault! Add this all up and multiply it with the hundreds of possible complaints and you have a giant headache for a gigantic company.
At this point in time, Cebu Pacific still has manageable problems or challenges and Intervention management will help them cope or put out fires. But it’s quite clear that the airline will have to reassess its operational design given the fact that any infrastructure improvement in terms of runways and terminals at NAIA is not going to happen until after two years. By that time, the number of people flying CebuPac will surely grow and it has to be managed in such a way that the growth does not turn into headaches. My wife’s expat friends spoke well about CebuPac out of Clark and considering the traffic and having to be at NAIA 2 to 3 hours ahead, there might be a possibility of doing an all in one “express shuttle-check in and boarding” at Clark all under two hours? Would be worth doing time and motion studies on.
If not, CebuPac could negotiate for assigned terminals or gates just like PAL has and then invest in the look and feel of those pre departure areas so passengers don’t feel the “cattle ranch” experience. As far as complaints or problems go, short of training the 1Aviation personnel on customer service and empathy, Cebu Pacific might as well copy the mall approach of having their own “customer service” personalities at the gates. As they say every little bit helps, and for CebuPac, they clearly will need more hands on board that fit what is demanded of the company. Shau believes that the emphasis needs to be on empathy, Salud mentioned “action and common sense. I close this column with the suggestion “Refitting.” When your battle ship has become so large, the crew that launched the ship of the yard will no longer be qualified and enough. Cebu Pacific also needs to revisit the spirit and philosophy that the company was founded on: Affordable – Fun – People Oriented.
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