Innovation as a solution to an airline´s operations crisis

In this paper, we distinguish “crisis management” from “disaster management”. We employ “disaster management” when human lives are lost. “Crisis management” refers to the solution of an operations crisis without lost lives. Our empirical illustration will be a 2010 Brazilian Airline operational crisis, which had its origin in the crew schedule planning, analyzed through the extended case method. We have found that a very proactive “disaster management” does not imply even a mild reactive “crisis management”. We have also found that the solution of a crisis may lead to many good ideas and operational progress. To avoid new operational crisis, the company adopted process improvements and created a dedicated permanent group, a new administrative structure.