✈️ When Two Systems Make The Same Call
What two separate connecting flights a month apart taught me about confidence and ownership
Two connecting flights.
Two airports.
Two delays, and two very different outcomes.
Both trips happened a month apart in mid-2023, and both began the same way: a delayed first flight that automatically offloaded myself and my travel partner from our onward connection.
What happened next revealed just how much difference confidence and ownership make in service.
1. Amsterdam → London → Copenhagen: Confidence in motion
In July 2023, our journey to Copenhagen was rerouted through London, with only an hour to make the connection.
When the first flight ran late, the system automatically removed us from the next one, which was the last flight of the evening. On paper, the door had closed.
One person chose to reopen it.
A calm, decisive agent at the transit desk called the next gate, confirmed there was still time to board (our onward flight was slightly delayed), revalidated our tickets, and handed us new boarding passes.
“Go now. If you don't make it, come back to us,” she said.
We ran. We made it.
It did not feel effortless, we still had to sprint through the airport, but we knew someone was actively trying to help us succeed.
She knew what she was doing, and she had both our best interests and the airlines in mind. She understood that it costs less to help a customer make their flight than to accommodate them overnight. Moments like that protect both loyalty and profit.
That moment left me confident not just in her, but in the airline she represented.
2. Stockholm → Istanbul → Adana: When ownership disappears
A few weeks later, almost the same thing happened again.
Our first flight from Stockholm to Istanbul was delayed, and once again the system automatically offloaded us from our connecting flight to Adana, even though the second flight was also running late.
At the transit desk, no one really listened. The staff refused to put us back on the connection, despite there being enough time to make it.
Instead, we were told to speak to a different team for rebooking and overnight accommodation.
From there, we were passed from one counter to another, treated like a problem no one wanted to own. Hours later, we had clearly missed the connection, been rebooked for a 6 a.m. departure the next day, and sent to a hotel to get a few hours of sleep before returning to the airport.
By the time we reached the hotel that night, we were exhausted, frustrated, and unlikely to fly with that airline again.
3. Reflection: Where service confidence comes from
Two airports. Two teams. Two almost identical situations. Completely different outcomes.
The difference was not the system.
It was how empowered the people were to act once the system had done its part.
Confidence in service is not about ignoring process, it is about knowing how to use it wisely.
Teams need:
Clarity on what matters most in the moment
Trust that they will be supported when they make a call
Permission to step outside the script when reality does not match the system
Without that, people freeze, hide behind policy, or pass the problem to someone else.
Empowerment is not only about authority, it's about alignment. When people understand the outcome they are trying to protect, they are far more likely to take calm, decisive action.
4. Leadership takeaway
In both of these journeys, the same type of system made the same type of decision. What stayed with us long after the flights were over was how the people around that system responded.
In London, someone used the system as a starting point, then thought about what was still possible and acted on it.
In Istanbul, people stayed within the system’s first answer, even when reality had shifted.
The strongest service cultures design for both:
Systems that guide decisions
Confidence that uses those systems in a way that protects customer outcomes and commercial impact
Because when systems make the same call, it is people who decide whether the outcome is a win or a loss.
