Ryanair, did you learn nothing from United Airlines?
I HAVE OFTEN said that silence is golden. There is an exception to this rule, and that’s when you are dealing with a reputational crisis.
When it comes to unforeseen blow-ups, you need to prepare in advance so that, if a crisis hits, you – and not the media – are in control. Decisive action is needed, and fast. If you wait until you’re trending on Twitter, you’re already on the back foot.
So I was shocked to discover that Ryanair, following a racist tirade directed at an elderly woman on board a flight from Barcelona to London on Friday, decided to act only when it blew up in their faces – but of course, by this time it was too little, too late.
The consequences for a badly handled PR disaster can be severe, as United Airlines can testify – around $1bn was wiped from their share price last year after footage appeared online of them violently removing a doctor from a plane due to overbooking.
Ryanair’s problem is that they didn’t remove a passenger from a plane. Specifically, an angry white man who verbally abused a 77-year-old black woman. To me, this shows a problem in the culture of the company, where it was more important to get the plane in the air than assist a vulnerable, frightened passenger. Mistake number one: staff were ill-equipped to deal with the situation.
Maybe there was a miscommunication, but the pilot could have removed the man, or had police waiting for him at Stansted. Neither of these things happened. The woman was moved to another seat, and the man remained where he was. What happened next was nothing more than Ryanair sticking their head in the sand.
After the footage was posted to Twitter on Saturday, they waited until Sunday morning to refer the matter to Essex Police. Not only were they thinking this was enough to resolve the situation, but they only did so after the footage had been shared widely on social media and the company had started getting pressure from the public to act. Mistake number two: inaction.
Their one-line Twitter statement was a disgrace, and showed a staggering lack of empathy or concern. This looks to me like their lawyers – who should be sacked, frankly – had advised them not to say anything in case it gets them into trouble. Saying “We are aware of this video and have reported this matter to Essex Police” is simply not good enough. Mistake number three: you can’t fix things with a tweet, especially not one like that.
When a racist incident happened in Starbucks earlier this year, they immediately issued an apology and closed stores for racial bias training. In America, pharmacy chain CVS fired two employees following a racist incident. Michael O’Leary did nothing.
Quick to criticise other airlines in the press, he should have been on the news the next day to apologise and assure the public that the cabin crew had been reprimanded for not dealing with the incident more appropriately. Mistake number four: not putting your CEO in front of the cameras.
Gone are the days when a press release could repair this sort of damage, and their announcement about falling profits and a grim outlook for the aviation industry is just that – a pathetic attempt to distract from the PR explosion that looks set to do irreparable damage to the company’s reputation. Mistake number five: Whataboutery won’t save you.
A far better strategy would have been to throw this abusive passenger from the plane or have him arrested as soon as the plane landed, issue a sincere and grovelling apology to the woman, then have a press conference or book Michael O’Leary onto as many news programmes as possible to explain what action they are taking and why it won’t happen again. The fact they did none of this is a clear indicator of the value they place on the safety of passengers and the importance of their reputation.
Mistake number six is surely just around the corner: not firing their PR firm.