It’s about trust
I remember riding our crew bus with a bunch of other pilots, and flight attendants in the spring of 1991 not long after our employer Midway Airlines had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The old red and white school bus ran the flight crews from the parking lot on Midway Airport’s north side parking lot along 55th Street to the terminal so we could connect with our aircraft. Since pilots have all the solutions to every problem on Earth (just ask one) a bunch of us were complaining about the current state of the airline and our future. Being a big mouth — yes, even then — I wondered why Dave Hinson, our CEO was still running the place. “If Hinson was in charge when we entered bankruptcy, why should we expect he’ll be able to get us out?” After a few nods, the back of the bus was quiet for a few minutes before we moved on to complaining about the crew meals.
As it turned out, my worries about what the big guy at the airline’s helm would be able to accomplish continued as Midway Airline continued its decline. For a few weeks though, we thought there was a silver lining to the dark cloud we all found ourselves beneath when word came that Midway was about to be purchased by Northwest Airlines (Northwest was later absorbed by Delta). We were overjoyed that somehow the management team had managed to pull a save out from the throws of Chapter 11. Our celebrations were short-lived, however, when on November 12, 1991, Northwest informed Dave Hinson they were pulling out of the negotiations. The original Midway Airline ceased operation the next day on November 13, 1991.
After Midway
Many of those memories have come flooding back to me over the past few weeks as the latest crisis erupted at Boeing, a company also once headquartered in Chicago. The current mess began when a door plug ripped a gaping hole in the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 on January 5th. Luckily no one was killed although many cabin items not tied down were sucked out of that fuselage hole when the cabin depressurized. It all could have been much worse. The door plug was eventually located in the backyard of a local high school science teacher. I think his name was Bob.
And what’s the connection between my former life at Midway and Boeing’s current jam? A bunch of Midway employees didn’t think Dave Hinson and the airline’s board of directors back then could save the ailing carrier. And as for Boeing? A recent story in Fortune magazine said, “Business pundits are watching closely to see whether CEO Dave Calhoun can lead Boeing through the aftermath of its latest crisis or if he’ll be replaced. But Boeing’s board also deserves scrutiny …” [Read more…] about Lessons Learned from an Industry Bankruptcy