Page 76 - Crisis Communication Practical PR Strategies

Calamities 57
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Air in Canada; Egyptair in the United States; Singapore Airlines
in Taiwan; SAS in Italy; and Air China in South Korea.
A recent survey by Kenyon International Emergency Services,
which has retainer contracts with more than 150 airlines around
the world, found that while most airlines review, update and
practise their communication plans on a regular basis at their
headquarters, they are less regular about communication pre-
paredness at outstation locations.
This is interesting because, statistically, most airline accidents
happen in the first or last several minutes of flight. Also, most do
not happen close to the home airport of the airline. That means
that for a period of time, anywhere from the first three to 12
hours – the time when public opinion is being formed – commu-
nication is being handled by people who are less well trained
than their communication counterparts at the company’s head-
quarters.
What the world’s most prepared airlines do is to continuously
train their field station managers to be able to handle media
enquiries, read an approved statement from headquarters or to
answer questions from approved documents. In reality, during
the first hours of an aeroplane accident, there is very little that
one can say other than the basics of the flight – flight number,
origination point and destination point – and to express to the
families affected sympathy for those people who might have
been injured or may have died.
In addition, the ruling aviation authority, such as the National
Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in the United States, which is
responsible for investigating the accident, has very strict rules on
what can and cannot be said by an airline following an accident.
But by allowing field personnel, such as station managers, to
address the media in the first few hours, it helps to satisfy the
needs of the media, in part, until a professional public relations
person can be there in person.
Why don’t more airlines train their outstation people to
respond to the media in a crisis? Part of the answer is organiza-
tional and part financial. On the organizational front, many air-
lines would prefer to manage communication in a crisis from
their headquarters location, and with the advances in communi-
cations and telecommunications technology this is more pos-
sible today than in the past. Having an executive on a global TV
network or on a company’s website with streaming video,
however, is very different to having the same executive at or near