Background

In mid-July, there was a flood disaster in the west of Germany after heavy storms, which not only tragically cost numerous lives but also brought to light some elementary weaknesses in German disaster control. Germany is probably only a representative example of a general weakness in communication chains and leadership control.

“Warned, hesitated, died: The death chronicle of the “monumental systemic failure” – as Focus, one of Germany’s best-known news magazines, writes

But what exactly happened?

On 14 July, more than 160 people died in floods after heavy rain caused even small inflows to swell into raging floods.

Four days before this event-of-the-century, both the German and the European weather services published first warnings for the later affected region. In the days that followed, these warnings became more direct and more specific. In the end, there were very precise forecasts that determined where to expect tidal waves and massive flooding down to the community level.

But what happened to these warnings?
For the most part, they went unheard or at least marginalized.

Most of the fatalities occurred where people were literally caught in their sleep by the floods.

Many questions remain unanswered. How could this happen in an advanced society? Given the information, what was the decision making process that failed so obviously?

More significantly, the information flow and the overall communication strategy were hampered by the bottom-up and fragmented nature of national disaster management in Germany. The country’s 294 counties and 107 self-governing municipalities are primarily responsible for managing major incidents and will only call for help from regional or federal authorities if their own resources are overwhelmed.

In any crisis, effective communication to all stakeholders is essential, particularly to those directly affected by the unfolding situation. This requires careful planning (and exercising) in advance, to ensure:

• The communication function is embedded within a robust, top-down crisis management response structure – particularly at the strategic level
• The communication strategy is focused on what the audience needs to know, and what actions they need to take
• Clear and consistent messaging is communicated to relevant stakeholders, as quickly as possible, using the most appropriate channels
• Media monitoring and social listening is used to provide an early-warning and feedback mechanism to identify emerging issues and to determine whether the communication response is working

“The Board’s view is that cultural problems are unlikely to be corrected without top-level leadership. That leadership will have to rid the system of practices and patterns that have been validated simply because they have been around so long”
Formal Investigation Board Report following the loss of Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003

“I made the decision. Was I happy about it? No. Was I comfortable in making the decision? Yes”
Former US President, George W Bush (interviewed by the BBC, 2020) on the challenges of making tough decisions during the 9/11 attacks.

Leadership and decision feature strongly in both quotes. And they are the cornerstone of crisis management. They are still more relevant in a crisis that you can predict that hasn’t happened yet – the German flooding example. In 2003 and 2011, communications were not at 2021 levels, advance information was almost non-existent and the crises were immediate and devastating. We can only argue of what senior leaders at the time would have done with 4-days advance notice of impending disaster.

But let’s take something contemporary and more relevant to the events that befell the German people and the decision makers. Look back only to September 2018 and Typhoon Jebi that was correctly predicted to strike the Osaka region of Japan. There were mistakes in post-incident management but advance contingency arrangements were made, defences were prepared, there was a public information campaign and the area was ‘ready’.

For leadership of countries, local authorities and companies, crisis management is not an option; it should be the number one item on a job description and questioned during employment interviews.

The procedures are clear and unambiguous for the cockpit crew. In the event of a bomb threat, there are checklists that are consistently followed.

If the crew receives a report of a potential danger on board, this information is taken seriously. For us pilots, there has been no reason to doubt that this information does not correspond to the current best state of knowledge.

As a former Airbus pilot, I only know the checklists for this aircraft, but the first steps will look very similar in all other commercial aircraft. The first decision step is to assess the actual position of the aircraft. Is it possible to land as quickly as possible and within 30 minutes? Then that is exactly what is done. Only if this is not possible further points have to be worked through.

In the case of the Ryanair flight, several airports were available within this 30min circle. The closest was the actual destination airport Vilnius.

And this is where all the speculation starts. On the one hand, there are excerpts of the alleged original radio communication, from which it emerges that the bomb would explode on entering Lithuanian airspace. On the other hand, there is repeated talk of an intercept by a fighter plane that accompanied the Boeing all the way to Minsk.

Regardless of what actually happened in the end. From the pilots’ point of view, all these indications point to the fact that there was no other choice but to follow exactly the recommendations and instructions of the Belarusian Air Traffic Controllers. There was no reason to doubt them.

Especially when the Boeing has actually been intercepted by one or more fighter aircraft, this is definitely not the moment for a pilot to discuss. The procedures are clear, the fighter signals instructions and they are carried out. That’s how we are trained.

So far so clear. As far as we know today, the Ryanair crew acted correctly. The entire crew, not to mention all the passengers on board, experienced very uncertain minutes that will certainly have a great influence on their thinking and future actions.

Ryanair’s statement referred simply to a “diversion” to Minsk after the crew were notified by Belarus ATC of a “potential security threat on board”. It also stated, incorrectly, that Minsk was the nearest available airport. It only became clear later that the aircraft had in fact been closer to Vilnius when it was forced to change course.

Although Ryanair went on to apologise to passengers for the delay, it made no mention of the fact that two of those passengers had been forcibly removed from the aircraft under armed escort. The two passengers – journalist Roman Protasevich and his partner Sophia Sopega – had told cabin crew and other passengers during the descent that they feared for their lives if the aircraft landed in Minsk.

No blame attaches to the Ryanair crew, who were obliged to follow procedures and to follow instructions from Belarus ATC. But the Ryanair statement conspicuously omitted to express any concern for the two passengers taken off the aircraft in Minsk, or to give any sense that this was a completely unprecedented situation. The following day, as more details emerged, including accounts from other passengers, Ryanair issued an updated statement which called the incident “an act of aviation piracy”.

It can be extraordinarily difficult to get the tone and content of initial communications right when responding to an unfolding aviation emergency, particularly in an “always on” media environment in which people can share information, photos or video across social media before the airline itself has all the facts. But the best starting point when crafting a statement is to focus on the impact of the event on the people directly affected. In this case, that meant not just the passengers whose journey was delayed, but the two who were forcibly removed from the Ryanair flight through no fault of their own.

Now that the dust is settling on the United Airlines saga, what else is there to say about this latest example of the power of unhappy customers armed with smartphones to turn a badly-handled service issue into a full-blown reputation firestorm?

This one ticked all the boxes, with screaming headlines, stern editorials, social media memes, threats of a boycott in China (where United is the largest US carrier), and almost $1 billion wiped off the value of the company. This was evidently regarded as a buying opportunity for some investors: the stock quickly recovered.

It’s easy to criticise the airline’s response, but harder to get it right when the story is escalating faster than your ability to confirm what actually happened, or why. As anyone who has been in a similar situation will attest, unless you were “in the room”, there is no way to fully comprehend the multi-dimensional issues and considerations in play, what was known at specific points in time, and how this knowledge influenced decisions.

Having said that, you get one chance to make a first impression. And United blew it. The initial statement in which CEO Oscar Munoz apologised for having to “re-accommodate” passengers was widely ridiculed. The damage was compounded by an internal memo in which he described the bloodied victim as “disruptive and belligerent.” The video images suggested the aggression was entirely one-sided.

When a video clip can be posted and retweeted thousands of times within minutes, there is simply no time for rounds of internal approvals and revisions before a company makes its first comment. Any opportunity to influence the unfolding narrative is fleeting – after which, you’re in recovery mode.

Language matters, particularly tone and nuance. If people have been injured, inconvenienced, or – in the worst case – may have lost loved ones in an accident, they expect a human response and a genuine commitment to address the problem, not corporate-speak or carefully parsed legalese. But hitting the right tone doesn’t get any easier when the company’s reputation is being shredded on social media, in real time.

The bad news – not just for airlines, but for any consumer-facing business, is that the reputational threat is rapidly becoming more complex. Consider the emergence of new social media platforms, the spread of faster broadband networks; the growing availability of wifi service in public spaces (and on board aircraft); the introduction of live streaming, Snapchat Stories, high-definition cameras in smartphones. And more smartphones, everywhere.

Project forward five years and imagine the hyper-visible and connected world which is already taking shape. Then think about the extent to which a company’s reputation lies in the hands of front-line staff – who may actually be third-party contractors, but are responsible for delivering the product or service customers paid for. One little-noticed aspect of the United story was that this was a franchised service subcontracted to Republic Airlines, under the “United Express” brand.

Research suggests that the average response time for companies to issue “meaningful external communications” in a crisis is 21 hours*. But a 24/7 media landscape requires an “always on” communications capability, and an instant response. That starts with social listening – if you’re not aware of the pictures everyone is talking about, how can you influence the conversation?

Companies need to be ready to issue an acknowledgement within 15 minutes of the first posts appearing. That’s the benchmark recommended by the airlines’ global trade body, the International Air Transport Association, in their “Best Practice Guidelines for Crisis Communications in the Digital Age” 

Follow that initial message with updates as quickly as new information can be confirmed, focusing on what the company is doing to address the problem and mitigate the impact on those affected. There is an inherent tension between speed, accuracy and completeness, but speed wins – with the proviso that legal risk is a vital consideration. This requires an accommodation between communicators and legal counsel, to ensure both parties understand the “red lines” and what language can be used safely.

For example, there is no legal jeopardy in apologising, as long as it is clear what the apology is for: the distress, inconvenience or disappointment of customers, rather than for a specific action or failure – at least, until the full story is known. The heat only started to dissipate from the United saga when the CEO finally went on a media tour, several days after the event, in which he appeared genuinely mortified and could hardly have been more profuse in his apologies.

But the real lesson from Chicago is that the ever-present risk of even a relatively minor incident erupting into the next social media firestorm requires companies to fundamentally rethink service policies, procedures and training. To paraphrase Warren Buffett, organisations must consider how their decisions – and the actions of employees who implement them – will look. Not just on the front page of their local newspaper, but plastered all over the internet. As the Sage of Omaha once said: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation, and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently”.

*Freshfields Bruckhaus Derringer: Containing a Crisis in a Digital Age, Nov 2013.

First published on Ketchum.com