LIfe SAVING decisions, effective communication and a short delay

 

Emirates flight dumping fuel

 

Flying to from London to Dubai on Saturday morning was another interesting flight. I make this flight a lot at the moment and the last 3 flights have been interesting to say the least.

One flight was delayed by 5 hours which was a pain but not too bad. Flying from Dubai to London 3 weeks ago, we were about to take off when we had to go back to the gate to off load a passenger who was unwell, again, a short delay but glad the passenger was off loaded so they could get the medical help.

On saturday of this week, we were 15 minutes into the flight from Heathrow to Dubai when there was an announcement. “Are there any medically trained Doctors or Paramedics on board please, if so please make yourself known to the cabin crew.”  Already I knew that this wasn’t going to be good for everyone.

Eventually it transpired that we had to get this passenger on the ground and quickly. He needed medical attention and he needed it fast. (He was having chest pains and sat a few rows in front of me).

The Captain had to make the decision to divert the flight to Frankfurt airport and get this person the help he needed. At this point we had to turn around and head back to Frankfurt which took 35 minutes and we also had to dump the fuel we had. (Landing with full fuel tanks is not recommended as the plane is just too heavy).  So we dumped the fuel (see picture) and then landed.

The man was taken off the plane and to hospital. We then found out that the plane had an issue with the right engine (great to find this out on the ground, NOT in the air 🙂 ) so we had a further delay of  50 minutes (over two hours in total) before taking off.

All the while the Cabin Crew and Captain kept us all up to date with what was happening and even ensured those who were connecting flights in Dubai were being taken care of as soon as we landed.

Just after we landed and as we were taxiing the Captain announced the passenger was doing well in hospital, which I am very pleased about. Sure we landed 4 hours later but the crew of that flight made the right decisions and then communicated it in the most effective ways.

Whilst it was a pain arriving late, I hope that if I was ever a person who needed medical help on a flight it would be handled in the same way

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Who do you think you are? Social networking and your reputation

It is amazing now how easy it is to connect with a vast array of people using social media. From twitter to facebook, Myspace and even YouTube (other social media sites are available :))

I use both twitter and facebook regularly and have both a personal page and a business page. My personal page reflects stuff that is happening in my life at any given time. From walking the dog to taking the kids to a theme park. I also use it to ask for help. An example being if anyone can recommend a good plumber, garage or restaurant.

My business page is used to showcase the work I do, the value I add to my clients (and non clients alike) whilst also using it as marketing tool.

What I have noticed over the last year is how my judgements about people I interact with are impacted by their status updates. There are many people who use social media to have a good old moan about anything that is happening in their life. The challenge I have is how it influences my thoughts about these people.

Some will moan about something once in a while and for me this is OK. Others seem to just ALWAYS have bad days.  These can be like those friends we see daily that always seem to be moaning about ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. Eventually I tend to feel less sympathy and empathy and quietly move away. All of this is done because I am forming an opinion of people by their actions.

Social media allows people to ‘vent’ from the safe space of the keyboard, but at what cost. Every time you update a status on a social media site people will form an opinion of you.

What do you want people to be saying about you? and what are you doing to influence that to happen?

Imagine you have an interview of a job and the interviewer likes what he sees and hears. Later that day whilst surfing facebook, he/she stumbles across your profile out of curiosity and it’s full of negative comments and swearing….

My guess is you have just lost any chance of getting the job.

What about potential clients and customers…they can find out what sort of person you are by what you say on social media.

It’s time to start managing YOUR reputation in an effective way and notice what you are writing BEFORE hitting the submit button. People will buy products and services from people they like, conversely they WON’T buy from from people they dislike.

FOUR WORDS…. You Cannot NOT Communicate…  Everything you do is sending a message to people around you. They form an opinion of you and then behave towards you based on that opinion. If you want to influence people to feel differently about you then start managing your reputation more consciously and effectively.

Social media is a great tool for you and your business BUT like all tools it needs to be used in the right way to make it effective. A hammer is a great tool for banging nails into a wall…but don’t use a hammer to fix a window….

Use social media carefully and effectively to manage your reputation and influence your ‘fans’ & ‘followers’ to say great things about you and your business

The day after I wrote this blog, the following article appeared in a UK paper… http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1304004/Google-CEO-Eric-Schmidt-says-Facebook-users-forced-change-names-escape-cyber-past.html