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D
ebbie Tempesta admits she’s a bit
of ananomaly. “In this day andage,
it’s hard to find people who love
what they do, but I do,” she says. “It’s fun
to come to work every day.” What makes
her words astonishing, though, is that
she holds what could be easily described
as one of the more challenging jobs at
United Airlines.
Tempesta works on a team of 33 net-
work operations control managers in
the nerve center of United Airlines: the
Network Operations Center, or NOC.
United recently combined operations
centers fromsuburbanChicago andHous-
ton into a new state-of-the-art facility in
Chicago’s Willis Tower. Around the clock,
365 days a year, NOC managers work in
teams of seven to oversee 6,000 mainline
and regional flights a day.
“It’s like the NASA control center you
see in the movies,” Tempesta explains.
“We’re the point people for the entire globe,
whether it’s routine operations or large-
scale events, such as political unrest or
weather situations, that affect our flights.
We work collaborativelywith dispatchers,
airplane routers, crew schedulers, main-
tenance control—all these people who
handle various aspects of flight.”
Just handling routine operations is a
day-to-day challenge, she says. “What we
do is like a giant three-dimensional jigsaw
puzzle. I work with creative, knowledge-
able peoplewho have the capacity to have
a lot of moving pieces in their head at one
time while multitasking and handling
various issues.” And thenshe faces the
non
-
routine. “Sometimes you have to be cre-
ative when you’re talking about a delayed
airplane with 350 people on it. You can’t
give up. You have to find a solution.”
Tempesta came up through the ranks
a er joining the company 15 years ago—
working in reservations, on the ramp and
in customer service. “I was a ramp supervi-
sor in Minneapolis,” she recalls. “We were
de-icing planes on the ramp onemorning,
and I thought, ‘What did I getmyself into?’
But every job you take along theway helps
you build that foundation for what you’re
meant to do.”
Airline operations centers tend to be
male-dominated, but that did not daunt
Tempestawhenpursuing her positionfive
years ago. “If you’re the right person for the
job, thenyou’re the right person for the job,”
she says. “You go a er what youwant, and
you do it with integrity, honesty and hard
work. If you work hard enough and you
prove yourself, you earn others’ respect.”
And she has earned that respect as
one of five women on the team. Her co-
workers say they like working with her
because she stays calm even when things
get hectic, but to Tempesta, it’s all part of
being one of those employees who have
a huge impact on customer experience,
whether the customers see them or
not. “Our objective is for our customers
to have a clean, safe, reliable journey,
and, in the end, we have an industry-
leading company.”
Tempesta comes from an airline fam-
ily—her father, mother and stepfather all
worked in the industry. On family trips,
her mother and stepfather used to quiz
her and her nine siblings on airport city
codes to keep them occupied. And cus-
tomer service is practically in her genes.
“My mom taught me you never meet a
stranger. When I travel, I want to talk to
people. I get a sense of what people want,
what people need, what type of travel
experience they’re looking for. I want to
discover what I can do differently in my
day-to-day work to benefit United long-
term, to help us give our customers what
they want and to show them we appreci-
ate that they chose us to take them there.
“I’m passionate about making a differ-
ence. There are so many positive things I
see happening, and yet sometimes people
tend to focus on the negative instead—
all that creates is negative energy. It’s
not worth it. We have more important
things to do.”
Calmand Collected
For Network Operations Control Manager
Debbie Tempesta, keeping things up in the air without
losing focus is all in a day’s work
BY A. AVERYL RE
18
AUGUST 2012
•
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
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