How Running An Airline Is Like Playing A Board Game Well

When I published a story about how the U.S. airlines would fit on a Monopoly Board, general feedback was positive and some commented on the idea to think of airlines on such an iconic game. The idea came about when I wanted to show visually how competition in the industry works, and how hard it is to win when four huge players own most of everything. The analogy is far from perfect, and many may have different ideas about how the Monopoly properties might better be allocated.

As a life-long board game player, I have often thought of my roles at airlines while playing a game and have been surprised how often similarities would appear. So, rather than the think about adapting other games in particular, a better idea is to think about game-playing in general. Many of the skills needed to be a successful board game player translate to running a successful airline:

Know How You Win Before The First Move

Mediocre board game players initially focus on the mechanics of the game — what you actually do each turn — rather than the winning conditions. Every game teaching session should start with the lines, “You win this game by ______”. If you win by having the most money, you have be sure to do things that make you money, and more of it than the other players. If you win by having points, money may be a tool to get the points but it is the points that must be chased. Some games require that you have a balance of items, so if you focus too much on one you are actually hurting yourself.

The airline business is similar. If you are starting an airline from scratch, like Breeze and Avelo have recently done, how do you plan to win? Will you find routes no other airline serves and own those, or go after routes other airlines have already built up? How will you win against much larger, better capitalized competitors, as well as airlines that may have lower unit costs of production? If you don’t know where you are aiming, you don’t know where to shoot.

If you are an existing airline, what is winning for you? Is it just surviving another year, or winning market share, or making money on every route you fly, or having the highest customer service ratings? It could be employing the most people or paying them best. Airlines that don’t know how to answer this are focusing on the mechanics — how to fly the planes, keep them airworthy, have crews available for every flight, sell enough new tickets every day to cover the costs of running for one day, etc. These are all important. But if you don’t know how you win, how do you know you that you will use the mechanics to win the game?

Don’t Worry About Your Score Mid-Way Through

Some strategies take time to develop. Novice board game players get over-concerned with their position on the score track long before the game is in its ending phase. Yes, you don’t want to fall so far behind that you can’t catch up. But if your goals are clear and your strategy is underway, that score doesn’t matter so much and it’s often better to stay focused.

Airlines are the same way. Routes take time to develop but at some point they move from prospect to suspect. Often airport real estate is a long-play game, taking time to slowly add facility. IT priorities often mean that great new marketing ideas aren’t available for a few more quarters. As these and other ideas evolve, that doesn’t give the company the ability to accept mediocrity. But it also means they don’t need to panic if the initiatives, even if not ready yet, are in place and will be delivering soon.

When Delta Airlines bought an oil refinery that would have otherwise closed in 2012, they weren’t betting their company on the strategy but took a step to try to control a large input cost more closely. Ten years later, it’s not clear this was a good investment but it’s not a bust, either. The point is, they weren’t worried about the score mid-way through the game.

Be Willing To Sacrifice For the Greater Goal

One of my favorite games is called Chinatown. In this game from the 1990s, the board represents neighborhoods in Chinatown divided into groups of squares. Each round, players randomly get deeds to specific lots and tiles representing businesses. Players try to get adjacent lots to place enough of the same business tiles to make the most money. The game focuses on open negotiations each round, where players can trade anything including business tiles, lots, and cash, present and future. The easiest way to lose this game is to hold on firmly to lots and business that you’ve drawn and to expect to get value without giving any. I can often tell how experienced the players are by their reactions to initial trades where I am often willing to offer the most valuable things I own. I also have good win record for this game.

Airlines also must sacrifice at times for a better long-term outcome. Agreeing with a labor union on wages that look scary for the cost structure can be a good deal in long run, based somewhat on how others react. Making commitments for future aircraft can be one of the more difficult decisions an airline makes, given that money is committed today for planes that may not even arrive for years.

The pandemic forced this in a few ways. Faced with a dramatic drop in revenue and no certainty of recovery, airlines used frequent flier programs as collateral for new loans and mortgaged planes that were previously owned. Despite having to leverage previously free assets, these moves kept some airlines alive while revenue was still highly suspect. These decisions, while seeming to be required by some, still forced the companies to think about near term balance sheet risk to preserve their enterprises.

Play With Integrity

In board game playing, there are often times when everyone plays simultaneously. Usually this follows a few rounds while players are assigning workers, collecting resources, or setting up a production engine. During the simultaneous play, each player uses the results from the prior actions to make moves for their own position. No one expects anyone to cheat, and doing so would face likely harsh consequences. Playing without integrity overtime means having no one to play with.

In the airline business, integrity follows in a few ways. Gordon Bethune, the turnaround CEO of Continental Airlines in the 1990s, likes to say “never lie to your doctor, lawyer, or your employees.” This integrity with employees is tough for some leaders, as often the truth is hard to give and harder to hear. Yet airlines who have a culture of treating employees right and always telling it like it is tend to do much better than those who don’t.

Integrity also follows in transparency and fairness. As airlines have added fees for ancillary services, the biggest consumer issue has been managing expectations well. Recently, refund policies of airlines have come under fire because some airlines have refused to offer refunds even when almost everyone would agree it would make sense. Multiple U.S. airlines confidently stated that they had “solved” the issue of families sitting together when traveling with a young child. Yet to make this happen at the “mission accomplished” airlines, you must call and possibly wait for a long time to speak to someone. As of this writing, no airline is yet guaranteeing this online through their booking path. Playing with integrity would mean not claiming a problem is fixed until it really is fixed.

Look For And Seize Opportunity

When playing a board game, knowing when to hold back and when to strike is often important. In game like Ticket to Ride, holding back could mean losing an important link since only one or two players, depending on how many play, can use each link. The other side of that coin is to grab the last spot on a link the you and a competitor likely both need, locking them out.

In the airline business, being a first-mover can have big advantages. In 2010, Spirit introduced the world first carry-on bag fee. Largely criticized, it went on to great success and has been copied by others in the U.S.and Europe. American Airlines recently cut the size of its corporate sales force in response to changing business travel trends. Many have wondered if this will work and if others may copy, but they saw an opportunity and made a bold move to address it.

But Airlines Aren’t A Game!

Making comparisons between board games and airlines is fun and can be insightful. But this doesn’t suggest that running an airline is a game. Board games are fun ways to compete with almost no real world consequences. You can lose a game and have as much fun as the player who won. Airlines are a tough business, and good decisions lead to profits that can be invested in people, planes, and growth. Poor decisions lead to lost jobs and difficult family situations, not to mention lots of stranded customers.

Following these rules will help make better decisions and lead to more profits, better paid employees, and lower fares for consumers. That is how airlines really win!