Terry Prone: How managers should handle long queues to keep passengers happy

A reality that all customer-facing organisations need to grasp is that communication does not start with a great spokesperson but face-to-face with customers. Picture: Leah Farrell
It’s this coming Wednesday, not the weekend. Certainly not a bank holiday weekend. Dublin Airport will be grand. Won’t it?

In this paper on Friday, Pat Fitzpatrick, in his Learner Dad column, told the story of his family’s experience in Amsterdam airport, trying to catch a flight to Cork. The queue they joined, despite arriving in plenty of time, “stretched halfway to Belgium", he said.

The Daa had to use mainstream and social media and did so professionally and well in the crisis. It may, however, have missed the opportunity to apply informed opportunism to those queues. It might have been useful if logistics, HR, and other managers had donned high-viz vests and walked alongside the queues, asking questions and apologising.