A friend of mine once sent me a brilliant email as a brief for a brand job where I had asked him to tell me about brands he liked and disliked. His response included a hilarious rant on why airlines are basically liars. Nearly all the the airlnes brands and marketing project this image of serene, sophisticated travel, when in reality air travel is just awful. The disconnect between the brand promise and actual experience is vast. He makes a good point.

Why do airlines lie though? Why do they think it is okay to consistently over promise and under deliver? Case in point, I left for the airport today at 5.30am with no indication on the website that there would be any delay to the flight, which was due to leave at 6.45 a.m. When I get there, their entire computer system is down and they are doing everything manually. Airline staff do not do well without computers. So we are told it will be a slight delay, now departing at 7.15 a.m. No big deal, I’ll just have another coffee and send some email.

We finally leave at 9.15 a.m. I arrive late for my first meeting and am then on the back foot all day.

Home time comes, look up on the website, no indication of the flight being delayed, due to leave at 5.45 p.m as planned. Leave for the airport, get to the airport at 5 and am told that the flight will leave at 6.15 p.m. A slight delay of 30 minutes. Flight finally leaves at 7.00 p.m.

So now, I’ll get home at 8.30 p.m.

Why do they have to lie, why couldn’t they just txt me or ring me to tell me the flights were running late with an accurate new time of departure and I could have stayed at home for a bit longer and stayed at the Wellington office and finished off some more work, rather than hanging around at airports.

I don’t believe this is just negligence, I believe they operationally want you at the airport just in case they can magically leave earlier. The problem is, this never happens. I have never been told that we’ll be delayed and then leave earlier than they said. Never.