Roads to Resilience

To achieve this experience, people within the airline’s various functions collaborate closely – from the marketers choosing the keywords for Google ads, to the IT specialists maintaining the booking website, to the engineers who ensure aircraft are technically compliant, serviced and ready to depart on-time with a cabin created by the in-house design team that is in fine working order, to the Clubhouse airport lounges, to the crew who provide the sparkle, and to the local teams around the world who ensure passengers, baggage, crew and aircraft are looked after properly. In addition, passengers expect something new quite regularly: “ We like to drive change that improves our operational performance, and that is never ending, but if we were just doing that, we would get bored. Our people and passengers need something new quite regularly. So, we actually really welcome other kinds of change that can be quite disruptive to the operation. If we did not have any of that, we would think we were missing something. That is part of our culture. Quite often, either we come up with new ideas or, for example, our counterparts in Customer Experience come up with new ideas. When there is a new idea, we say, ‘That sounds great, love to have a look at it, but we want to be involved.’ We would always want to involve a few crew members or a few crew trainers or some of our airport check-in team – so, we involve people from the frontline and see if the idea works. We trial from a perspective of trying to show ourselves that it can work, not to prove it cannot ” (Director of Operations, Safety and Security). This way of collaborating extends to Virgin’s suppliers as these are critical for the success of the airline’s operation: “ We always treat our suppliers as if they work for Virgin. When we can, we even put their people in our uniforms. We make them part of the family ” (Director of Operations, Safety and Security). This also contributes to Virgin Atlantic’s resilience: “ When you share the same values and work in partnership with your service providers, the approach to resolving a service delivery issue is much more collaborative, because it is also to their benefit to rectify the situation quickly ” (General Manager Corporate Safety and Security). Like most companies, Virgin Atlantic has a hierarchy but it operates in a flat way: “ We do not have a mahogany row. The executives sit in open plan offices, and we are not on the top floor – we just happen to be in one corner on the second floor. People know where we are, we immerse ourselves in the business and they can come and talk to us ” (Chief Operating Officer). Operations and crisis management A feature of Virgin Atlantic’s flat structure is that Operations and Crisis Management roles are separated to respond faster and more effectively to major unexpected events. In this structure, emergency response or duty commanders are not executives or even necessarily operational people: “ The Head of Legal has been a duty commander for a good number of years. We look for the kind of person who has a passion and would like to get involved. It is open to people across the company: generally, if you want to do something, you will do a good job. Also, they have to be able to hold meetings, coordinate responses across all aspects of the company, structure communications and think on their feet ” (Director of Operations, Safety and Security). The logic behind this separation of roles is that when an emergency happens, it does not mean that senior leaders are overwhelmed by having to manage every Business structure

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Appendix A Case study: Virgin Atlantic