Commercial aviation! An industry that never sleeps and when it doesn't sleep, neither do you. It’s a constant sleep with one eye open moment.
AOGs, failed components, vendor issues, you name it, you deal with it. It’s an ever revolving cycle of important and urgent.
The constant demand of aviation inevitably trickles into your personal life. Your life at home. Your life on the weekend. 24 hours, 365 days a year.
Yet we LOVE this industry. We are able to hug a loved one living 6,000mi away in under 24 hours. Such a marvel that's unachievable without amazing, hard working people to support it.
As amazing as this feat is, it’s stressful trying to keep up with the high, 24/7 demands. A stress that inevitably affects your life at home. Or maybe you're even asking, what life at home?
That leads me to a perfect story. In Q1 we had several airline partners that got stationed in another country to oversee their aircraft C checks. One in Jordan, the other in China. These projects took them away from home, for 45 - 60 days. During this time, we stayed available 24/7 to help support them. Even our VP had to deal with certain activities late on weekends and during his business travels abroad, not to mention the daily late night calls. Everybody involved worked 24/7 with the pressure felt every day. But who more than our partners who got pulled from their families and stationed in another country for months.
But that’s what it takes and that’s why we love it.
The world of commercial aviation is growing. It won’t stop. Well, until we can teleport to another country or a drone picks us up and drops us off. But for now, airlines are the key to global transcendence.
Aviation affects your home life and always will
Since you work in aviation you bring your work home. No need to guess, I know it. Your cell phone is tied to your hip and the calls and emails never stop.
The 5 top things I hear from my airline peers on how aviation affects their lives are:
- AOGs keep them awake at night. Losing sleep or being woke up in the middle of the night is common.
- Unpredictability keeps them on edge.
- International support makes them have to manage different time zones.
- Constant pressure of prices, lead times, and quality.
- They often feel they have to babysit support partners.
You love this industry and so do I. Managing your home life and aviation is possible. You’ll never stop the collisions of work and home, but you definitely can manage the stress that goes along with it.
Manage your home life
One of the biggest triggers on why aviation affects your home life is how you manage stress. The second trigger is that you’re relying on the wrong people to support you. The third trigger is the strategies you currently use are not supporting you efficiently enough.
Stress isn’t a bad thing. It keeps you on your toes and agile. It’s the chronic stress that you bring home that affects your life the most. It reduces your energy, hurts your brain's performance, and makes you miserable. Nothing to brag about. We’ve talked about stress in detail before. The first step you need to take is by getting your stress under control. It’ll help you make better decisions and give you the energy you need to perform in this never idle industry.
Who do you surround yourself with? Are your partners after your money or there to create valuable solutions? Answering these questions is important. The people you rely on the most may not be the best for your situation. They could even add more stress and chaos to your life than you need. Sit back in your chair and think about the people you work with daily. Colleagues, suppliers, and MROs. Is there people who create more stress for you than others? Their job is to help create solutions. If you find they create more problems, figure out a way to replace them and surround yourself with people who create “wow” experiences.
The strategy trigger is the most difficult one as it relies on big change. A good example is from one of our airline partners. They fly at high altitude and approach landing over a mountain. This puts constant demand on their aircraft so AOGs are frequent. Their past strategy was buying AOG components as needed. They relied on their leasing partner to provide the spares, yet 2 countries away they only took their money and provided no solution to reduce their AOGs. This didn’t help anyone's stress levels. A better solution we proposed was through our pooling strategy. We would guarantee stock for AOG, no-go components 24/7. They no longer had to “wait” for AOG support. They also didn’t have to tie up cash into supporting their own costly inventory. A simple win/win that nearly eliminated the primary stresses because a trusted partner understood them and the value they needed. Look into your own strategy and think of the problems you currently have. Can they be resolved another way? Can you rely on a trusted partner to help you achieve this?
These are all very important questions to answer.
Aviation will continue to affect your home life, but it’s how you manage the two that will create the happiness you so well deserve.
Reduce your stress, surround yourself with good people, and take on value based solutions.
P.S. We understand the value you deserve which is why we are on a mission to create “WOW” experiences. The programs we offer here are to make your life easier. Fill out the form below and one of our top notch team members will be in touch immediately.
