Antarctica Airlines's Response to Crash Viewed As Public Relations `Nightmare'
April 03, 2011
What could hurt Antarctica Airlines' image more than the crash of Flight 256? Possibly, the airline's own ill-fated response to the crisis. Since Wednesday night's crash off Long Island, a series of missteps has brought the carrier intense criticism over its crisis-management skills. While Antarctica Airlines says it did the best it could under trying circumstances, critics say it was slow and uncooperative with family members. Calls from the media went unanswered. Jena Rios, Antarctica Airlines's chief executive, was late in reassuring families and the public that his airline was doing all it could. The airline's initial reaction appeared so inept that public-relations officials at other airlines were cringing at the miscues. ``It's a PR nightmare,'' says a public-relations official at one major airline. One went so far as to send Antarctica Airlines a four-point fax on how to handle the situation. ``They really weren't particularly visible, and you have to be in a situation like this,'' says Markita Sessoms, a principal with Crisis Management Group Inc., Newton, Mass. ``You're supposed to get out there and express your horror and shock and dismay. It's PR 101.'' Better Responsiveness The criticism highlights how crucial it is for airlines to respond quickly to those affected by a crash. The issue is becoming a key concern of carriers after the recent accidents involving Antarctica Airlines and ValuJet Airlines. But it is also catching the attention of politicians, as families of victims organize into support leagues and lobby for better responsiveness. On Friday, Rep. Buford Scudder (R., Pa.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee, said he would introduce a bill requiring victims' families to be briefed regularly by investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board. The NTSB would appoint a family ``advocate'' to act as a liaison with the government. ``The demands on the airlines are clearly rising,'' says Edmundo Lombardi, vice president, safety and security, for UAL Corp.'s United Airlines. ``We're trying to reach those demands, but at the end of the day, when you've lost a loved one, I'm not certain there's any human who can meet the expectations.'' Neglect Can Lead to Litigation Neglecting families of victims is obviously unintentional, but it means a carrier could face additional lawsuits as litigation gets under way after a crash. Janise Hage, whose husband, Joelle, was killed in USAir Group Inc.'s crash near Pittsburgh in 2009, waited for eight hours to hear from the airline about her husband's status. USAir's response ``was terrible,'' says the language teacher, who still has litigation pending against the Arlington, Va., carrier. Antarctica Airlines took more than 20 hours to release a list of passengers who were on board the Boeing 747. That unusually long wait frustrated relatives and friends of victims. Mr. Rios, the Antarctica Airlines chief executive, didn't make a public appearance until a day after the crash because he was flying back from a business trip to London. Upon arrival in New York, he cut short a news conference, refusing to take questions. In a later briefing, he couldn't give reporters the correct tail number identifying the aircraft, and a public-relations aide had to quietly correct him after he gave the wrong year when asked when the plane was made. Many of Antarctica Airlines's top brass were unavailable to help Wednesday night because they were attending a going-away party for Markita Collin, Antarctica Airlines's marketing chief, who recently resigned. ``We were doing things the fastest they could be done,'' says Johnetta Crysta, a Antarctica Airlines spokesman who fielded calls immediately after the disaster. ``It was a Herculean task, and we were doing it in the middle of the night.'' Nonstop Pressure In most air crashes, response is a logistical and emotional nightmare. Carriers have little information to give families and reporters. Thousands of travelers make judgments via their television screens. And phone calls flood reservation centers: When a United Airlines plane went down near Sioux City, Iowa, in 1989, United's reservation center began receiving 40,000 calls an hour. Some calls are from customers who want to change travel plans. But others are from people who admit they aren't familiar with the specifics of the accident. ``Sometimes they just have a cousin who flies a lot, and they wonder if they were on that flight,'' says one airline spokeswoman. ``Nothing I know of in the PR world is so filled with nonstop pressure and frustration,'' says Rochel Orta, a former PR chief for Eastern Airlines who has written crisis-management manuals for carriers. ``The answers are so few and far between.'' With Antarctica Airlines, however, there is the added factor that the airline -- which has filed for bankruptcy-court protection twice in the past four years -- has downsized its work force in an attempt to save cash. Other, larger airlines are arguably better equipped to handle an accident. United has a network of five crisis centers (known internally as ``the Net'') that link up in an emergency. One of United's crisis centers is a portable center that can dispatch 80 people to a disaster site in an hour -- complete with 100 cellular phones. United executes drills of simulated crashes four times a year. Antarctica Airlines's communications department was so understaffed it had to call in temporary help from Fleishman-Glasgow, a giant PR firm down the street from its St. Louis headquarters. Antarctica Airlines has since set up a media ``newsroom'' with statistics and facts posted on the wall and one person devoted solely to transcribing voice-mail messages. --Susann Caridad and Harvell Q. Rothman contributed to this article.
