Airport_Business_June-July_2019 - 34

FBO MATTERS
AUTHOR Douglas Wilson

MEDIA RELATIONS AFTER AN ACCIDENT:

Are You Ready?

Has our society become so litigious that we cannot sincerely apologize for a
genuine mistake without causing additional liability for our company?
ON APRIL 20th, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico, the
Deepwater Horizon, a semi-submersible oil rig
operated by Transocean on behalf of British
Petroleum exploded, killing 11 workers. The worst
oil spill in recorded history, Deepwater Horizon left
scars not only in the fertile waters of the Gulf or
on the families of those lost on the rig, but on BP's
brand as public relations miscues by the company's
chiefs mounted in the media echo chamber.
The public relations woes for Chief
on May 3rd, with the first of a series of
defensive statements: "This was not our
accident...This was not our drilling rig...
This was Transocean's rig. Their systems.
Their people. Their equipment." By the
end of the month, more gaffes: "There's
no one who wants this over more than I
do. I would like my life back." Certainly,
those who lost family members didn't
need to hear such callous cries for pity
from a man whose compensation at the
time amounted to a $1.6M annual salary,
with a reported $17M pension.
The f inal blow to BP's public
relations efforts came in June that
year, when BP's chairman Carl-Henric
Svanberg said, "I hear comments
sometimes that large oil companies are

Executive at BP Tony Hayward started
greedy companies or don't care but that's
not the case with BP. We care about the
small people." Small people? BP's stock
price became very small after that last
statement, losing around half its value
overnight.
United's 2017 removal of passenger
Dr. David Dao from flight 3411 set off a
similar public relations firestorm. Initial
statements by United CEO Oscar Munoz
defended the crew and described Dao
as "...disruptive and belligerent." As
video evidence contradicting Munoz's
statements went viral, so too did calls
for his resignation. In short order a
more conciliatory tone was struck by
Munoz, but the damage had been done
to United's brand. In the days following

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DOUGLAS WILSON

Douglas Wilson is the president and
founder of FBO Partners, LLC, an aviation
consultancy providing business management advisory services to Fixed Base Operations (FBOs.). Wilson can be reached
at douglas.wilson@fbopartners.com

34 \ AIRPORTBUSINESS / JUNE/JULY 2019

the disaster, a poll of fliers who had heard
of the incident revealed 79 percent of
them would choose a non-United flight
instead.
Today, Boeing faces a similar public
relations disaster regarding the loss of
two 737MAX aircraft with a total of
346 aboard. A worldwide grounding of
the 737MAX fleet that began on March
11th continues as of this writing. While
the media churns out new headlines
each day, early revelations - particularly
one - shattered public confidence in the
103-year-old aerospace giant. On May
5th this year, the Wall Street Journal
headline read "Boeing Knew About
Safety Alert Problem for a Year Before
Telling FAA, Airlines." While the court
of public opinion is yet to make its final
ruling, history favors Boeing: both BP
and United are quite healthy, with the
latter recently enjoying near record stock
prices.
All are examples of a situation that
escalated - not because of the magnitude
of the underlying issue - but because of
a ham-handed public relations response.
In each case, these are giant companies
with professional emergency response
plans (ERP), rarified public relations
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