I flew from Houston Hobby to Chicago Midway last week. As I usually do, I asked the Southwest Gate Agent how full the plane will be. I thought I heard the agent say “The plane holds 120. We are booked to 214.”

WHAT???!!! Holy cow! I know I have to sit in the middle of my two travelling companions now!

I repeated back to him what I thought I heard …. We had a good laugh. What he said was “booked to 114.” Somehow I missed a number! Thank goodness I did.

It isn’t what he said, it’s what I think I heard.

On August 11, 2008, on The O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly read this from the Democratic Platform:

“We will give immediate relief for the people who have lost their way …”

Are they talking all the homeless people? Are they lost ‘enough’?

Or the people that got caught up in the buy-more-home-than-you- need crisis? Are they lost ‘enough’?

Or those that are taking mass transit instead of driving their own car? Are they lost ‘enough’?

Who determines who has ‘lost their way’? And how badly do you have had to lose it?

It isn’t what they said, it’s what we think we heard

I spoke today to Shell Women in Downstream [WDSF] Finance’s Symposium today. What a fabulous congregation of women! The auditorium was nearly filled with women who connected very easily to “You know what you said … do you know what they heard?”

Everything from “Denny’s on Highway 234 by Home Depot” to my first experience with text messaging … they related to my experiences and several shared some of their own. It’s even better when we can laugh at these episodes!

As one of my coordinators and I were comparing our own traits, we laughed that neither one of us were especially attentive to details. Luckily someone on the committee was, as she explained, and showed me the multi-page handout that committee members received including who was to be where and when. Thank goodness there are people in this world that insure those of us that are 50,000 feet vision people know when we are expected where.

It was exciting for me to be in a room filled with vibrant, energetic women. Thank you Shell Women in Downstream Finance!

In a recent article in the Dallas Business Journal, it appears the Allied Pilots Association, the union for American Airlines pilots, has taken offense to American Airlines ‘counseling session with dispatchers’ regarding fuel requirements calculations.

The union believes that AA wants to take away the authority of the pilots and schedulers to determine how much fuel to have in the aircraft. The airlines is denying that. They say that are simply making sure that the dispatchers are following existing policies.

It isn’t what American Airlines said, it’s what the Allied Pilots Association thinks they heard

Read the article and let me know what you think!

I saw this recently in the Aviation Industry Newsletter Tuesday 12 August 2008

ALPA continues United offensive

The acrimony between Untied Airlines’ management and the carrier’s airlines deepened yesterday as ALPA, the pilots’ union, called for United CEO Glenn Tilton to resign.

“Under Glenn Tilton’s tenure, United has gone from being the finest airline in the world, with the best route structure and safety record, to a shell of its former self,” said UAL captain Steve Wallach, a member of UAL’s board of directors. In another attack, ALPA recently impugned United’s safety standards in a letter to the FAA. United has termed the most recent broadside, “an obvious and predictable attempt to deflect attention from ALPA’s illegal activity cited in our lawsuit, which details the organized and concerted effort to harm our customers, our employees and our performance”.

Last week we had Frontier Airlines pulling blankets and pillows off it’s planes, this week United Airlines is becoming Untied … or is that Unglued?

Or did you not notice the misspelled word?

It wasn’t what they wrote, it’s what you think you read?

As we know, ‘pilot error’ is the cause of many accidents. The precursor of Pilot Error is aviation medicine …. This was a result of the aircraft manufacturers having to replace numerous crashed planes by pilot wanna-be’s. In the early days, the pilot wanna-be’s had to go through a series of medical tests to be sure they had the ‘right stuff’ to fly the aircraft. American doctors focused on the function of the inner ear.

Because these tests were inconclusive, further research into aircraft accidents were investigated. After WWII, it was determined that 90% of casualties were due to ‘pilot error’. Hence ‘pilot error’ became a opportune catch-all phrase.

Pilot error … when there was no visible cause of the accident. After all, we have to have a reason, a cause, for the accident. This usually was perhaps the easiest and most expedient way to place blame. We then had something/someone we can yell at, scream at and blame that would help assuage our own guilt.

The other reason for ‘pilot error’ is that we believe that flying is a very difficult skill. Now I’m not saying it’s easy – that’s not what I meant to say.

Both of these reasons imply that the accident was a result of only one defining moment, one isolated act. That there was one single point where fingers can be pointed to with an “AHA!” moment, as if to say “if the pilot had not done this, the accident would not have happened.”

Truth be told, that is not the case.

So can ‘pilot error’ simply be a series of ‘human errors’?

On July 16, I wrote about the Pilot Ego, and gave words to describe what the Captains thought of their co-pilots and what the co-pilots thought of their Captains.

More research has brought to light other interesting facts: Psychologists have studied pilots and have concluded there is a particular personality of pilots. From MBTI, they are intuitive extroverts. They are more attuned to understanding and forming patterns from the information received. They get their energy from being keenly involved in activities, not satisfied with sitting along the sidelines.

They are also very logical, pragmatic and have strong desires for achievements. They also are caught in a paradox … balancing their strong ties for a solid family life with the yearning for new experiences.

By far, however, the most prominent character trait of pilots, especially military and Alaskan bush pilots, is their absolute, solid, unwavering faith in themselves. This may account for the prevalence of Captainitis and the primary cause of several accidents.

In the next several days we’ll explore the effect this had on the history of aviation.

“Frontier Airlines pulled blankets and pillows off its planes late last month …”

When I first read this opening sentence, my immediate thoughts were of these planes, probably enjoying the cool evening Denver air, and glad it was not in the winter that they lost their blankets and pillows. Then I wondered if when Frontier pulled the blankets, it was not in broad daylight and that the planes had some privacy. Do these planes not have a comforter on, or are they covered with only a sheet?

Now I realize that this means that Frontier Airlines will no longer have blankets and pillows in the cabin for passengers. This sentence does have alternate meanings.

It wasn’t what they wrote; it’s what I think I read.

Don’t you just love conference break out session descriptions? Now I have written my share of them, and I do realize that the words you use to describe the session can mean the difference between a standing room only crowd and a one-on-one coaching session!

I sat in a session that, as one of the objectives, was to learn powerful questions that make prospects sell themselves and eliminate price objections. I don’t know what I was thinking when I read this. I didn’t realize that the session was about sales. SALES!!! I thought I had enough of ‘learning how to sell myself’. Since I walked in late, I didn’t want to embarrass myself and walk out early, so I stayed. I did learn something … those ‘powerful questions’ can come in handy.

It wasn’t what was written, it’s what I thought I read

I recently attended the National Speakers Association Annual Conference in Times Square, New York City. The American Airlines flight from Houston Hobby to LaGuardia was close to the flight from heck.

It actually began the night before we left and continued for about 15 hours. Our original flight was to leave Houston Hobby at 9:35 a.m., change planes in Dallas Ft Worth, then off to LaGuardia. The airlines called me at 10:00 the night before to tell us our flight had been cancelled and we were not booked on a 1:30 flight, arriving in New York at 8:10 p.m. We had dinner plans at 8 pm, so that option would not work.

I called the airlines and after hitting button after button, was connected to a live person. When I asked why our flight was cancelled, her response [after checking] was “crew duty times …. The crew needs to have a certain amount of rest time ….”. OK being in the aviation industry I understand that. We finally got booked on a 6 am flight, changing planes in DFW and arriving in LaGuardia at 12:15.

I got about 3 hours sleep … having to get up at 4 am for the 6 am flight. The first leg, to DFW, went without a hitch. The second leg was uneventful, that is until about 30 minutes before we were to land in LaGuardia. At 11:45, the Captain made the first of many announcements [note: these are not the exact words the Captain used … I have paraphrased]:

11:45 am Captain: Well folks, LaGuardia is having weather, so we’ve been put in a holding pattern. Should last about 40 minutes. We have enough fuel. We’ll keep you posted.

11:55 am Captain: Well folks, LaGuardia has been closed because of weather. We’re off to JFK.

12:05 pm Captain: Another change, folks. We are off to Baltimore

12:10 pm Captain: We just got word that a plane landed at JFK from another angle, so we’re going to JFK.

12:20 pm Captain: [after landing] We’ll we’re here at JFK. Not sure if we’ll stay or what we’re doing. They don’t have a gate for us, so please stay in your seats with your seat belt fastened.

12:25 pm Captain: We’re being fueled as we speak. We’ll be leaving shortly headed to LaGuardia.

At this point several passengers went to the front of the plane and pleaded their case to deplane at JFK.

12:30 pm Captain: We’re looking into letting you off here. We have no gate, no agent, TSO needs to get involved. We are looking into it.

12:35 pm Captain: OK folks this is the deal: if you did not check any baggage, you can get off here. We are responsible for you, however if you get off here we are no longer responsible for you. Please stop by and see the gate agent as you leave.

At this point, we decided to get off and catch a cab to Times Square. We were walking towards ground transportation at 12:45 …. A mere 30 minutes after our original landing time.

The Captain was very friendly in his announcements and never talked down to us. He seemed genuinely sincere in wanting us to know what he knew about the situation.

Some people may believe the Captain gave us too much information; I strongly disagree with them. I like being informed, even if there is nothing rational I can do about it.

It wasn’t what the Captain said, it’s what I thought I heard. And I heard caring, concern and strong confidence in his job and responsibilities.