“By removing slack, airlines create failure. In order to increase profit, airlines work hard to get the maximum number of flights out of each plane, each day. As a result, there are no spares, no downtime and no resilience. By assuming that their customer base prefers to save money, not anxiety, they create an anxiety-filled system.”
Seths Blog: Eleven things organizations can learn from airports.
The worst part of this list is that it describes modern life; not just the worst parts of it!