“Crisis? What crisis?” says Middle East airline Sonja Koremans
Middle East airline Etihad this week denied it was facing a local PR crisis after three of its first-class Australian passengers spent more than a month in jail following an in-flight incident during a trip from Sydney.
After the trio were released from custody in the United Arab Emirates they quickly went on the offensive, giving multiple interviews to Australian media claiming their incarceration had been the result of an overreaction by the airline staff.
Their lawyer Ross Hill alleged the passengers got into a row because the air conditioning wasn’t working, the men couldn’t use their laptops, service was bad, there was not enough food and there were difficulties with refrigeration. The men were arrested when they landed and were charged with a range of offences including intoxication, sexual harassment and indecent exposure.
But as publicity over the case escalated, one of the men was acquitted while the other two were given suspended sentences. After the incident their lawyer claimed that the men were charged with breaching local laws by drinking without a licence, despite the fact that this referred to consuming alcohol on the plane which had, he alleged, been provided by the airline. He underwent a round of media interviews warning other passengers that they could be treated the same way if they flew with Etihad.
But Etihad’s head of corporate communications Iain Burns based in Abu Dhabi, denied the incident had harmed the airline’s image in Australia. He told B&T: “Crisis? What crisis? We are taking a reasonable stance on this – most men and women who read the reports will be glad that there is an airline like ours that cares about the safety of its staff and its passengers.
“It is having no impact whatsoever on the number of people flying on the airline from Australia to Abu Dhabi and beyond.”
He said he was not aware if the airline had implemented a crisis management plan.
But PR practitioners said the airline needed to take the issue seriously. Burson-Marsteller MD Walter Jennings told B&T: “To manage this crisis, you have to be in the dialogue, and pretending there is no crisis doesn’t make it go away. You need to out in front leading the conversation not trying drive behind and clean up. I would be suggesting a much more active involvement rather than pretending it isn’t an issue.”
“What it does do is chills the bones of the Australian business traveller. In my view it is doing a bit of damage of the airline and the country.
“You would also put an Australian face on this and put whatever occurred into an Australian perspective because when these gentleman land they will be putting a very Australian face on the issue. There are already so many misperceptions and misunderstandings regarding countries and businesses in the Middle East that anything that contributes to that is going to be blown out of proportion exponentially.”
However, travel consultant Geoff Smith of Geoff Smith Public Relations said the drama was unlikely to affect the airline’s image. He said: “The public would realise that the airline isn’t bad, it’s the three passengers who were so it shouldn’t have a detrimental affect on Etihad,” he said.
Sydney-based Hill & Knowlton, which was appointed to handle the airline’s PR earlier this year, declined to comment.
