In September, when a Thai Airways plane skidded off the runway in San Francisco, the airline responded by covering their logo on the damaged plane, standard practice in the industry. On first glance, this practice seems like the right thing to do, distancing the brand from the accident and allaying flyers’ fears.
But the brand’s colors used on other parts of the plane still connected it to Thai Airways. This is good brand recognition, but not in this instance. The logo was covered with black paint; a better alternative would have been painting white over the entire exterior.
The other problem was the quickness the airline exhibited in covering the logo. The public perceives such haste as a possible cover-up and in today’s digital world plenty of photos were taken before the painters arrived.
British Airways took a more prudent approach following an incident with an aircraft that undershot the runway in 2008 at Heathrow Airport. The airline relocated the wreckage to a different part of the airport behind a fence before removing the tail with the BA logo. All other branding was covered up when the airframe was disassembled, common practice before removal.
You can learn from this if your company faces a crisis: a crisis communications plan should be in place before any crisis happens so you’re not seen as reacting imprudently.
We will cover what a simple crisis communications plan should look like in a future blog. Stay tuned…