It was one of the messages in my inbox. It might have been there to create some excitement and invite me to take a moment to look at their new flight booking platform. Knowing that my time is limited, it simply became a warning that whatever I might have been used to has changed.

Yet again.

Luckily, it also triggered a point of reflection, which included paying attention to the content of the message. I could imagine that some of the changes related to improvements requested by customers. Other changes, however, reflected a change in practice I noticed over the last months. Choosing one’s seat, for example, seemed to have been part of the attraction of checking in online. It has now become part of the streamlined process, and one that needs to be paid.

One can decide to become disappointed with this change. One can be frustrated that the newsletter announces it as good news we’ll appreciate. And one can become an observer of the dynamic that unfolds.

Looking back, the question of luggage has a similar story. Especially on short trips the cabin back will often suffice. It first allowed a time advantage as there was no need to wait for one’s luggage to be delivered upon arrival at the airport. Then it allowed one to pay less with a ticket price adapted to the amount of luggage one chooses to check-in. Today, what appears is the impact such a choice has on flights where most passengers decide to travel with cabin luggage. These passengers find themselves confronted with a crew asking them to accept aircraft delivery instead of taking their luggage into the cabin. There is not enough space in the cabin to serve everyone.

What is appearing is how the continuous effort to gain efficiency starts to backfire. The idea of efficiency is that it is possible to do things perfectly and consequently that it is superfluous to leave space for individual generosity and tolerance. What we discover is that when this space is taken away, it becomes more difficult to deal with bigotry and selfishness.

The ultimate goal of efficiency is to be able to win. Paradoxically there is a tipping point that transforms the system into one where winning becomes an objective for everyone in the system. That makes it hard for those who created the system to handle the daemons they called.