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Planning pays off when a Volcano strikes!

Submitted by Editor on Mon, 04/19/2010 - 11:26

 

The Icelandic Volcano eruption has shown just how  challenging the world can be and the travel industry must be starting to wonder if someone up there has in for them!
 
Just after the industrial action by BA staff created Air travel uncertainty in the run up to Easter affecting many peoples travel plans they have been thrown into chaos once again by the quite possibly unpronounceable  Eyjafjallajoekull Volcano that is leaving hundreds of thousands stranded and the plans of many looking to travel in the coming weeks up in the air, a terrible pun but do forgive me.
 
Already the news media is starting to track the consequences of the travel disruption that will doubtless cost business many millions of pounds on top of the estimated £130m per day being lost by the Airlines.  We have already had to cancel two trips this week, scale this up across the 100,000‘s of business travellers and diaries all ready starting to feel the strain.  
 
Schools are dealing with missing teachers and businesses with staff absent unable to return from the Spring trips. If the planes stay on the ground the difficulties will increase and start impacting on organisations supply chains. On Sunday as Jenson Button won the F1 in China thoughts were already focussed on how the teams were going to get all their staff and equipment back in time for the Spanish GP.  The MotoGP race in Motegi, Japan scheduled for this weekend has already been cancelled. 
 
Closer to home we have heard the first reports of difficulties in transporting organs and bone marrow being seen. 
 
In a great little media coup the TV presenter Dan Snow lead a flotilla of Speedboats across the channel, revisiting the Dunkirk spirit, to rescue Brits stranded in France in aid of the Help for Heroes campaign.
 
And now even the Navy have been called in with the Ark Royal, Ocean and Albion now being sent to aid bridge the channel. 
 
Against this backdrop though the need for a blanket ban grounding the planes is being called into question by many in the travel industry and Airlines are now asking for compensation from the government.  
 
A simple point though is that Volcanos have been around for a while, the problem of Ash in the engines is known to be a problem from a number of incidents in the 80’s and 90’s, but  it appears as though not much thought has been given this this in the horizon scanning process of either government or the Airlines.  Its a cheap shot I know, but certainly those working in the Aviation industry (and regulating it) really should have had more extensive thinking, testing and developed approaches to the challenges if the risks are so very expensive to the sector.  
 
In some ways we can look at this situation and use words like unprecedented, exceptional and the like, but the reality is more likely to be that it was just thought to be too unlikely to actually put any effort into (or someone didn’t want to spend a few pounds to cover the cost of the assessment project). I wonder what the thoughts on this are now it’s cost over £500million in just a few days. 
 
All is not lost however as from our (pandemic) planning we developed a simple and remarkably cost efficient virtual meeting capability that has already worked well and as a result rather than cancel another session we’re using a telepresence for it, and it can be used for others coming up as well.  This is an example of how the pandemic planning undertaken last year has delivered some real value for us despite the cause of the ‘event’ being very different. 
 
Indeed, I heard of a Wedding on Saturday where 100 guests were treated to a similar measure as the Bride and Groom were trapped in Dubai ... the Wedding photo's will doubtless be interesting, but the party went ahead!  
 
Anyone who has seen Russell present at events (either ours or the many others) will recall the importance he places on ‘Agile and Adaptive‘ planning in order to get the best from the investment made. 
 
The downside is though it means just as we thought we had a bit of free time with him stuck in Scotland there he is on the screen highlighting that what we now need is some kind of virtual make-up artist!