Guest Blog from Jonathan Russell on BA and T5
Jonathan Russell is a former Head of Corporate Affairs at Thames Water and PPP. He started his career in the BA Press Office
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS, BUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
The past is a foreign country. No doubt BA management have yearned for that glorious past in the last few days – if only they could get a flight there from Terminal 5. One person bore the full burden of being the Go Between twixt the BA Chief Pilot and his distinctly unloved-feeling paramours stuck in cattle class.
Julia Simpson, head of corporate communications, was the ritualistic sacrificed messenger in the weekend press. She it was who reflected what the feeding frenzy of the media – descending from their holding position stacked above Heathrow for the last few months to pick over the bodies – seemed to want. “The brand has been damaged by this,” said Simpson, although clinging to the belief that the “mea culpa” from Willie Walsh was the best mitigation. Up to a point, Julia.
What she and the “brand experts” who rushed to agree with her, and more importantly with Mr Walsh, forgot about was the basis of the text book recovery three months ago with the headline grabbing 777 belly flop.
You will recall that on that occasion the BA media team deftly anticipated the key questions that arise when a large metallic object decided to obey, rather than defy, the laws of physics. Thereby they reflected a reassuring “it’s good to be British in a crisis” feeling to the public. It was that team, surely, who would have briefed Captain Willie and his crew to talk frankly in the aftermath of events then.
No so last week. Apparently the concern was not misleading the media on “a fast-moving story” – ironic given the slow speed of baggage belts and staff to adapt to their new home. So could Mr Walsh have performed any differently? Most emphatically yes. His visible performance (or absence) let the airline down. It was no time to lead from the back. The airline hid itself behind the security blanket of the prepared statement on day one and when the main man emerged in his hair-cloth it was too little, too late.
There is a subtle psychological positioning being played out when any business resorts to rhetoric, as when politicians or litigants deploy “statements”. It is the same in the more traditional advertising approach to marketing. It goes something like this: “I am apparently so supremely confident in our position as the leading opposition to the government/as the barrister for the prosecution/as the world’s favourite airline (delete as appropriate) – because my case is supremely subjective and defensible against counter argument, and the majority can trust my words.”
The trouble is that once that confidence is breached by objective evidence, it cannot simply be sidestepped or moved on by simply saying “sorry”. Where is the evidence? We need to talk about this, Willie. We, the fare paying public, need to have answers. They may not be the exact right answers, but we will be able to tell whether you are indicatively heading back to the rails. Talking to customers has always been a misnomer, for what BA should be more concerned with now that its position is more vulnerable is talking with customers/stakeholders.
BA always used to be able to do this. Led by the A-team of Marshall, King and Burnside, beneath a veneer of arrogance were hearts that instinctively knew what questions the customer was asking of the flag carrier. The Saatchi brothers then applied their huge creativity to dressing a business in the Union Jack in a way that did not feel superficial or shallow.
Admissions of guilt count for little without taking a dialogue forward with the customer, proactively. It is a misleading truism these days for businesses to say they operate in a “no blame” culture. Try telling that to the Mail. Step one is easy – to say sorry as Mr Walsh has emphatically done. The big step is to quickly start to demonstrate that at worst BA has been caught napping by instigating an action plan and timetable. Terminal 5 is not the Millennium Dome, yet even that other iconic development was a white elephant in search of a cunning plan as fans of Zeppelin, Springsteen and Tutankhamen will attest. Let’s hear what the next steps are, Willie. Heads may possibly need to roll, but not for the sake of it.
And while you are at it – maybe put your investment where your mouth is. I remember an audacious BA once giving away every ticket for every flight in a 24 hour period in order to kick start an ailing industry and I don’t recall a single lost bag incident. Maybe sort the baggage system then give away every seat out of Terminal 5 for a day to test drive the reborn service. I am pretty confident you have the people who can rise to the challenge – just tell them to pretend it’s like getting passengers out of a crippled 777.