It has been just announced that Delta Air Lines posted a $5.7 billion net loss in the 2020 second quarter, and is cancelling 500 out of 1000 planned daily departures in August.
We cannot condemn the airline bravery and optimism at these critical times, but can question if decisions based on comprehensive real-time strategic feedback, yet to become a practice, could have reduced these losses?
Big unexpected losses happen and will be happening around the industry not just because of unpredictability of market demand, but because of the reliance on methods for planning and measuring airline performance set in the 1950s, unsuitable for managing complex organisations at times of extreme uncertainty.
It takes only a little shift in habitual thinking to understand that getting the strategic feedback based on the near real time insights is the only way to keep adapting to the new circumstances before surprising losses show up in the profit and loss statements.
Things change faster than ever and we need to find ways to align with reality faster than ever.
