Page 75 - Crisis Communication Practical PR Strategies

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5 56 Crisis Communication
Jerry Hendin first outlines the preparation required and character-
istics of a crisis in the airline industry, then Silvia Pendás de Cassina
describes the reality of handling the inevitable. Finally Jim Walsh takes
crisis management lessons into the realm of an accidental fire, a crisis
that could affect virtually any business or organization of any size. The
company described in this case study had not one but two fires – but
both occurred in the space of a year.

Aeroplane accidents

Airline travel is one of the safest means of
transport

Jerry Hendin

According to Geneva-based watchdog agency, the Aircraft
Crashes Records Office, 2006 was one of the safest for the com-
mercial airline industry worldwide. There were 156 crashes
during the year, three-quarters of which were smaller, propeller-
driven aircraft. Nearly 1,300 people lost their lives.
While 1,300 is still an unacceptably large number, it is a frac-
tion of the nearly 2.1 billion people who flew during that period.
When one compares 1,300 people to the nearly 43,000 who
died in automobile accidents in just the United States in 2006,
one can easily get a sense of how safe airline travel is. However,
aircraft accidents, particularly those with mass fatalities, garner
huge media attention around the world. This is understandable
because airline accidents can change the lives of hundreds of
people on a plane and tens of thousands of family members,
relatives and friends.
While almost all accidents are predictable, one factor that dis-
tinguishes the airline industry from other industries is that, while
one can predict what kind of on-ground or in-air accident might
occur, one cannot predict where or when it will happen. This,
and the number of destinations that a large company might fly
to, makes flight safety a top priority for all airlines and one that
is never promoted as a competitive advantage.
In general, the world’s airlines do a good job of being pre-
pared to deal with the communication issues in a crisis, but cost-
cutting and other priorities have affected airlines’ ability to
respond in a crisis. This is particularly true when the incident or
accident happens outside its home country. In the past 10 years,
there have been a number of such accidents, for example Swiss