As the Middle East has once more descended into sudden crisis, creating human sadness, widespread disruption and sending shockwaves through the global economy, organisations across multiple sectors are (also once more) wrestling with their preparedness for – and ability to respond to – another emergency.
But here’s the question: why do so many of those organisations claim to ‘learn lessons’ from each of their crisis responses – only to struggle again in the next one?
Join the live debate
Join leaders from EcoOnline on 21 April as we explore what aviation’s response to the current crisis reveals about modern preparedness — and what it takes to turn disruption into lasting advantage
After COVID, we heralded the new world of ‘just-in-case’ global supply chains. But a six-day blockage of the Suez Canal in 2021 caused rippling global supply chain challenges for months, delaying nearly $10 billion worth of goods daily and highlighting the vulnerability of critical maritime chokepoints. A year later, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine knocked the entire global economy off-kilter – wheat prices alone saw a 55% rise.
Taken together with ongoing regional instability, trade wars, semiconductor shortages, climate extremes, and cyber-attacks, organisations continue to face overlapping “polycrises” – simultaneous disruptions in health, geopolitics, and economics that have reshaped global systems. Are their crisis responses – and the technology that underpins them – fit for the future, or do they risk ‘crisis amnesia’ over and again?
The problem is that humans adapt quickly when faced with uncertainty. But, over time, we revert to familiar set points. Our bias toward normality pulls us back to what feels efficient, stable and known (the ‘status quo’), even if the underlying risks haven’t changed. So, how could organisations take a different perspective?
Challenge your thinking:
Whether you work in aviation or another industry, what lessons from aviation’s crisis response and broader impact could inform your own future readiness?
Aviation as a benchmark for lasting resilience
Aviation offers one of the sharpest views into what crisis response and readiness look like under real pressure. It operates as a high-tempo, tightly interdependent ecosystem, where disruption in one node quickly cascades across the network. It is also one of the few sectors where the cost of crisis amnesia is so visible that lessons are more likely to be carried forward into operations, training, and decision-making.
Time and again, aviation has embedded its lessons into lasting operational change – security protocols became permanent and innate after 9/11. Large-scale rerouting became a necessary, built-in capability after massive ash cloud disruption in 2010. Crisis coordination frameworks are continuously tested and refined – not shelved – once the headlines fade.
Over the last month, the Middle East conflict has caused airspace closures and rerouted flight paths, leaving thousands of stranded passengers facing the immediate shocks. Then there’s the cascade of “crises within a crisis” as oil markets react and fuel prices rise. Coupled with supply chain disruptions, the ripple effects spread quickly, compounding operational pressure across the entire system.
The question is not just how aviation responds in the moment. It is how leaders across aviation work to carry lessons forward into the next disruption — and what other sectors can learn from that discipline.
Challenge your thinking:
Do organisations unconsciously return to old ways after crisis — or do they slowly (knowingly) prioritise efficiency over resilience? Register for the live debate on 21 April.
Resilience is built before the crisis, not during it
One of the clearest lessons from aviation is that resilience is not improvised in the moment. It is designed into the system long before it is tested. Airlines with diversified route networks, flexible fleets, strong data visibility and mature coordination models can absorb disruption much more effectively. Those heavily dependent on a narrow set of routes, assets, or regions are far more exposed.
This is also where many industries still confuse crisis response with resilience:
Resilience is about structuring your operations so that they cope more effectively when disruption hits. That usually means investing in flexibility, redundancy and optionality before the business case becomes urgent, testing those backups and then resisting the temptation to strip them away as stability returns.
Crisis response is about reacting effectively once disruption hits.
Challenge your thinking:
If a key route, supplier, market or operating model became unavailable tomorrow, how much real flexibility do you actually have? Join the live debate on 21 April as experts examine what aviation’s response to the current crisis reveals about modern preparedness.
Systems (and culture) overcome human fallibility
The Health and Safety Executive identifies management and supervision as among the most significant organisational factors influencing Aviation has long been built around the understanding that human error is inevitable. The goal is not to pretend it can be eliminated – or punish those humans for their fallibility – but to build systems that absorb it, mitigate it and learn from it.
That is why psychological safety is crucial in aviation. Near misses, weak signals, and coordination failures are surfaced quickly because people are expected to report them without fear of punishment. That steady flow of information gives leaders a fighting chance to address systemic vulnerabilities before they escalate into something worse.
Many industries still struggle here. They may have reporting mechanisms, but not the culture required to make those mechanisms reliable under pressure.
Challenge your thinking:
When something goes wrong in your organisation, does the system learn — or does the individual carry the blame?
Communication gaps create secondary crises
In volatile situations, information gaps can create secondary crises of their own. For example, aviation’s response to geopolitical instability depends on clear, real-time communication across airlines, airports, regulators, crews and passengers. Decisions about rerouting, delays, safety posture or passenger handling only work well when people are operating from a shared understanding of the real-time picture. If that breaks down or is inaccurate, confusion spreads quickly and that confusion turns into risk.
This is especially important in today’s media environment, where rumours and partial information move faster than formal statements. In aviation, transparency has to be systematically built into the operational response. Clear, early communication helps maintain trust, reduce noise, and prevent misinformation from driving behaviour.
Building on that point, the ever-increasing trend for organisations to have more lone workers means that not only are their activities harder to coordinate, but also that they face a unique series of risk factors simply by virtue of being alone. Without effective technology and communication protocols, lone workers can present a critical blind-spot in crisis response.
Challenge your thinking:
In a fast-moving disruption, how quickly can your organisation establish — and communicate — a single source of truth?
Static playbooks are no match for dynamic crises
Many organisations now have defined crisis playbooks in place. Whilst they are better than no playbook, modern disruptions do not unfold in a neat and predictable manner. They cascade into a web of crises within the overarching crisis.
The current Middle East situation is a good example: airspace restrictions alter route economics, fuel exposure, crew scheduling, airport congestion, passenger experience and wider network reliability all at once. Managing that requires dynamic monitoring, scenario testing and the ability to adapt assumptions in real time.
That’s why leading aviation organisations increasingly rely on live data, simulation and structured coordination to stress-test those assumptions as conditions evolve. That doesn’t mean they can predict every shock. It means they are less dependent on the dangerous notion that tomorrow will behave like yesterday.
Challenge your thinking:
Are your crisis plans designed for the scenarios you already understand — or for the reality that conditions will change faster than the plan can?
Coordination at speed is a competitive advantage
For aviation leaders, resilience isn’t achieved in a bubble. During a crisis, no airline, airport, or regulator operates in isolation. Decisions must align across partners, geographies and constraints — often simultaneously.
That level of coordination is critical for public safety, and it’s also a commercial differentiator. Organisations that can align decisions faster, share intelligence more effectively and move resources more coherently are better placed to maintain continuity, protect trust and recover with less damage.
Yet, many industries still treat crisis coordination as a series of bilateral conversations or fragmented response teams. Aviation, by necessity, has learned that when systems are interdependent, resilience depends on synchronisation.
Challenge your thinking:
In a major disruption, how quickly could your organisation align decisions across teams, partners, and stakeholders — not just internally, but across the full ecosystem you depend on?
The real discipline is remembering
Most organisations do learn during crisis. The problem is that they often fail to retain what they learn once the pressure eases. Lessons are discussed, documented, and even briefly acted on — but unless they are embedded into systems, operating models, technology tools, and leadership expectations, they gradually dissipate. This is where crisis amnesia does its damage.
So, perhaps the most important lesson from aviation is not how it responds, but how it remembers:
Incidents and near misses are captured while events are unfolding, not reconstructed from memory later.
Reviews are structured, documented, and designed to identify root causes rather than simply record actions taken.
Lessons learned are embedded into standard operating procedures, training programmes, and system design — so the same scenario is handled differently the next time it occurs.
In other words, resilience is not solely about bouncing back to the previous state. It’s just as much about learning and adapting so there is less distance to travel when bouncing back next time.
Challenge your thinking:
What lessons from your last crisis are now embedded in your systems — and which ones are already fading into story rather than strategy?
Join the live debate – Learning From Crisis: What Aviation Teaches Us About Lasting Resilience
As conflict in the Middle East disrupts the global economy, we need to avoid a familiar pattern resurfacing, where lessons from crises fade, and organisations drift back to fragile ways of operating.
Aviation, often among the first sectors to feel a crisis’s wider impact, offers valuable lessons in building readiness into everyday decisions, systems, and training. This live debate takes a closer look at how leaders in aviation readiness are thinking about lasting resilience — and what organisations across every sector can learn from that approach.
Tuesday, 21 April 2026 | 10:00 AM EDT, 3:00 PM BST
