The airline industry is full of unexpected scenarios. When have you faced an unexpected difficulty?
How you manage yourself when things don't go according to plan will reveal a great deal about your character and your emotional intelligence. Although it is natural and expected to respond to such events emotionally, it is how you conduct yourself that equates top your emotional intelligence. Do you suffer task paralysis, exhibit stress, or panic in such situations, or do you manage your emotions, look at the situation, and act decisively while keeping your calm? This is the aim of this question, which is relevant to this industry and maintaining calm and order among your trusting passengers.
"I faced unexpected difficulties frequently in my previous position. The company was in financial strain, and some days we are not able to deliver the customer experience that we should. I overcame this by giving everything I had when it comes to service. I strove to leave a good impression. Then, the biggest difficulty was my unexpected lay off during the last recession. I had to adapt to a new economy and search deeply for other skills and opportunities. I was able to earn enough to avoid financial strain and am quite proud of my ability to be versatile when required."
"These things happen all the time, whether a passenger gets too drunk, or breaks something in the bathroom, or we get their meal wrong, or a passenger faints or whatever. Just think fast, remain calm and collected, and make everyone feel valued and taken care of, crew and passengers alike."
Here is some information Virgin Atlantic shares on their website about their 'Human Factor Training': "The culture that our training promotes is one where you can be highly talented, skilled and experienced but still have the capacity to learn from errors, because you believe that in aviation, we treat these events as precious learning opportunities. This is driven by our no blame culture, where we share ideas when things go wrong to prevent them from happening to someone else. Our training also teaches us that leadership and teamwork is an inclusive effort, where everybody's talents and skills are recognised and valued. There is no fear in speaking up regardless of your rank if you feel something is unsafe or doesn't feel right. We use stories from our crew and pilots to enhance the learning and the latest research from the world of neuroscience and social psychology."
Community answers are written by other candidates practicing this set. Reading how others frame the same question is one of the fastest ways to sharpen your own.
Anonymous Answer
At the hotel, every day we get a list of who is coming and how many guests we have so we had to set up the restaurant for the amount of guests. Just after a big group of six turned up asking for a table I checked with the chefs to make sure we could cater for them and then quickly set up a new table for them. They were very apologetic that they hadn't booked but very grateful and appreciative that I managed to get them seated and didn’t have to turn them away.
Jaymie's Feedback
It sounds like you have a lot of experience handling unexpected situations. Your example is a good one to share because it shows you're able to remain calm in stressful situations, keep the customer experience at the forefront, and work with other team members to ensure you're able to overcome the challenge. Great job.
Anonymous Answer
Unexpected difficulties currently are mainly around aggressive and violent passengers. My job is to protect the airline crew and passengers of whatever plane I’m boarding. If I’m concerned I will step in what happens after that is dependent on a million factors only a few I can control. I make sure I do what I can to diffuse but am ultimately willing to decide on denial of travel or how I need to report it.
Jaymie's Feedback
If possible, try to give a specific example of a difficulty you experienced and use the STAR method when answering. If not, it's okay to give a more general answer, as you provided, on how you would navigate a situation like this.
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