And you thought the passengers were mad Airline employees are fed up too with pay cuts increased workloads and management s miserly ways which leave workers to explain to often enraged passengers why flying has become such a miserable experience New York Times December 22 2007When both an industry s workers and its customers report high and rising frustration with the way they are being treated something is fundamentally wrong In response to these conditions many of the world s airlines have made ever deeper cuts in services and their workforces Is it too much to expect airlines or any other enterprise to provide a fair return to investors high quality reliable service to their customers and good jobs for their employees Measured against these three expectations the airline industry is failing In the first five years of the twenty first century alone U S airlines lost a total of 30 billion while shedding 100 000 jobs forcing the remaining workers to give up over 15 billion in wages and benefits Combined with plummeting employee morale shortages of air traffic controllers and increased congestion and flight delays a total collapse of the industry may be coming Is this state of affairs inevitable Or is it possible to design a more sustainable less volatile industry that better balances the objectives of customers investors employees and the wider society Does deregulation imply total abrogation of government s responsibility to oversee an industry showing the clear signs of deterioration and increasing risk of a pending crisis Greg J Bamber Jody Hoffer Gittell Thomas A Kochan and Andrew von Nordenflycht explore such questions in a well informed and engaging way using a mix of quantitative evidence and qualitative studies of airlines from North America Asia Australia and Europe Up in the Air provides clear and realistic strategies for achieving a better more equitable balance among the interests of customers employees and shareholders Specifically the authors recommend that firms learn from the innovations of companies like Southwest and Continental Airlines in order to build a positive workplace culture that fosters coordination and commitment to high quality service labor relations policies that avoid long drawn out conflicts in negotiating new agreements and business strategies that can sustain investor employee and customer support through the ups and downs of business cycles