Why Your Airline Nightmare Proves Common-Sense Management Is the Secret to Customer Loyalty

After a trip, we rarely remember a complimentary drink or snack. What we remember is whether we felt informed, respected and in good hands.

Recently, an emergency trip reminded me how crucial those fundamentals are. I booked a commercial airline expecting what any traveler reasonably expects: a safe, on-time and reasonably smooth journey, supported by clear communication and basic courtesy. Instead, I experienced a series of avoidable managerial missteps. None of them were complex, required fancy technology or were impossible to prevent with a little common sense.

This experience reinforced a simple practice I use in my professional life, which I now share with my students: common-sense management. This practice calls for conducting people and work in practical, clear, fair and result-oriented ways, without unnecessary language, complexity or theatrics. It means putting theory into action, moving from admiring good ideas to executing them.

Airlines, like any business, must balance customer service with efficient and profitable use of resources. I am not naïve about cost pressures or thin margins. But when a service business cuts corners on communication, planning and frontline empowerment, it does not save money; it moves costs downstream into delays, complaints, rework, refunds and reputational damage.

The biggest failure on my trip was not the lack of amenities. It was the absence of timely, accurate information. Schedules shifted. Expectations changed. The “service contract” between the customer and the company felt as if it could be rewritten at any time, with minimal or no explanation.

In service businesses, information is part of the product. Customers tolerate inconvenience more than uncertainty. Uncertainty creates anxiety, and anxiety magnifies every small problem. Common-sense management recognizes that communication is not a courtesy; it is a core operational deliverable. If you must change plans, communicate early, clearly and repeatedly. Indicate what changed, why it changed, what customers should do and what you are doing to fix it. “We’ll update you later” is not an update. It is a withdrawal of trust.

Service businesses do not earn trust by claiming they care. They earn trust by reducing surprises, keeping their commitments and demonstrating visible competence even when conditions are not ideal. What I experienced was a pattern of decisions that seemed to prioritize internal convenience over customer well-being. Last-minute changes without clear next steps, and an attitude that conveyed the message, “You’ll get what you get.” That is not just poor customer service; it is a management failure.

Common-sense management requires companies to constantly ask what customers need to stay confident and remain loyal. Customers want transparency, consistency and fairness. Trust is not built during a crisis; it is built across many small, consistent interactions before it arises. You cannot wait for a crisis to review your standards; often, it will be too late.

When customers feel they are being treated as “just another transaction,” you not only lose goodwill but repeat business and referrals. In an age when a single social post can shape perception faster than any marketing campaign, fairness becomes an asset you either invest in or squander. A fair experience is one where customers can see the logic. They may not like the outcome, but they can respect the process.

Fairness requires managers to design clear and consistent policies, empower employees and provide clear escalation paths. Fairness is not sentimental; it is strategic. When fairness is built into operations, it reduces conflict, accelerates problem-solving and builds trust. Clear guidelines on what frontline staff can do without seeking approval help resolve issues quickly and consistently. Speed and fairness reduce friction, and friction is costly.

In Columbia and elsewhere, there are many service businesses competing not just on price, but on trust. Restaurants, clinics, financial services, repair shops, logistics providers and professional firms can all adopt common-sense practices. The lesson from my flight is not that airlines are bad; it is that even large, system-driven organizations fail when they ignore the basics. When that happens, customers remember, and trust erodes.

At Columbia College, we teach strategy, analytics and frameworks grounded in sound theory, while also emphasizing practices that never go out of style. We remind our students to perform the fundamentals with clarity and respect, and to use their critical thinking to guide their actions based on common sense. That is where theory meets practice.

If you lead or manage a service business, here is the simplest takeaway from 30,000 feet: Your product is not only what you deliver. It is how reliably you deliver it, how clearly you communicate and how fairly you respond when reality changes. That is common sense. And it is good management.

Rudy Araujo is an instructor in the Columbia College Robert W. Plaster School of Business. He has more than three decades of professional experience as chief executive of an international technical support agency and as a high-level public servant. In 2019, Araujo turned his attention to teaching and consulting.