The Man Who Killed Braniff

                                                       Case Write Up: “The Man Who Killed Braniff “

By Anand Singh

Problem:

The Braniff International terminal at the Dallas Fort Worth Regional Airport (DFW), although seeing new heights in the recent history, is going out of business.

Harding Lawrence, the CEO of the Braniff airlines, was a one man show. He was a master salesman, a persuader, and above all a consummate actor. Lawrence, with his flamboyant set of ideas, took Braniff Airlines to new heights. But the airline's biggest enemy had been there all along. It was Harding Lawrence himself. His chauvinism, along with his unpredictability, drove the company into losses.

Lawrence brought with himself a number of factors, ranging from employee dissatisfaction to a series of bad, ill-informed decisions, which led to ‘the death of Braniff’.

Dissatisfaction of employees:

• Insulting cabin crew because of minute issues, mostly for no fault of their own.
• Throwing food and drinks on the staff just because he was not in mood for food or drink.
• Discouraging the staff and making them feel dumb about things they were experts on.
• Intimidating the staff with dire consequences such as threatening to fire them.
• He did not seek any suggestions from the staff to improve the airlines. He did whatever he felt like doing and blamed staff for his decisions.

Due to the above series of shows put on by Lawrence, the staff had begun fearing and hating him. As a consequence, the staff only focused on pleasing Lawrence and ignored the quality of service provided to the other customers. The entire plane, apart from the coach Lawrence was in, had turned into a mess. Also, the untimely shows put on by Lawrence caused the customers to either avoid the coach he was in or the airline altogether.