Failure To Communicate

The weather has not been very good in Abu Dhabi in the last few days and it wreaked havoc with Etihad Airway's schedule with delays and cancellations.Happens, mother nature can be capricious if not outright bitchy sometimes.

Airlines do their best to cope. These days the use everything they can get their hands on to ease the impact of the disruption on their passengers. Not Etihad, it seems they never heard of the word "COMMUNICATE".

They can figure out ways to expand their network or provide additional services on board or on the ground. What they have failed to grasp is the need to advise their passengers of how their flights have been affected.

A quick look at their Facebook page shows several comments by passengers complaining about extensive delays but not a single entry by Etihad explaining or apologizing. These comments were later deleted. Their website is business as usual. I tried to check in on the website for my Jeddah flight back to Abu Dhabi and all I got was a message "your flight is not open for check in". 

I never got a message from them informing me there is a delay and the website did not have any message regarding these disruptions. Basically a massive failure to communicate coupled with an inadequate Emergency Response Plan (ERP). ERP is not about crashes and accidents it is also about massive disruptions and how to recover.

In all fairness the airport staff in Jeddah, were at hand and interlined some connecting passengers with other airlines to their final destinations and offered the remaining passengers food and refreshments. 

However, Etihad as an organization did not rise to the occasion and failed dismally. If you want to be credible you have to perform. All these awards don't mean a thing to passengers stranded for 9 or 10 or 11 hours. They only prove that when you have good PR you can get any award you want. 

Etihad should look at their Response Planning and how to embrace the available means to minimize disruptions and keep passengers engaged and happy.

ERP 201 ... Volcanic Ash and Beyond

The last week was a time of revelations, it showed how fragile was the air transportation system was. A volcanic ash cloud over Europe closed the airspace grounding the majority of the airlines in that region. It also affected almost every airline in the world. The losses to the industry was USD 1.7 Billion in a week, imagine if it went on longer. This is what the airline lost and does not account for what other industries that relied on air cargo across the world lost.

That week was in a way an educational week. It showed how airlines and ancillary services reacted, some with compassion others just followed the rule book. Nevertheless, there are several lessons to be learnt here.

1.The airline industry is very global and very vulnerable to disruptions. The closure of the European airspace affected airlines across the world. The industry just stood gawking helplessly, at what potentially was its own demise, as losses mounted at the rate of USD 200 millions a day. No contingency plan or business continuity plan was effective. This was a scenario that no one foresaw, the airlines had no idea what to do with passengers, staff or aircraft. There were no protocols for the testing of volcanic ash and its potential effect on aircraft engines and airframes. The health impact was not even addressed.

2.Emergency Response; I bet no airline Emergency Response Plan catered for such a disruption. The traditional means of communications, although important were not adequate to cope with the scope of the disruption and the amount of queries. The traditional media, print, radio, TV and even websites were not fast enough or real time to respond to an evolving situation which increased in number and complexity, with each day bringing on more stranded passengers to the already chaotic scene. Enter Social Media to the rescue with Twitter and Facebook playing a major role allowing airlines and Eurocontrol to interact with passengers and to give up to date information and responding to questions in real time. Several airlines refined their internal social media processes to meet the challenge.

Every airline must review its Emergency Response Plan to take into account of such or similar disruption. The last time this volcano erupted it lasted for more than a year. However, the most important revision should be in Communications. It is a must that Social Media be acknowledged as a means of responding to crises and keeping passengers and their families and friends along with all other stake holders in the information loop. It should not by any means replace press conferences, call centers and other media channels.

3.Protocols and processes must be agreed by all stake holders (authorities, OEMs and airlines) to test and gauge the safety impact of volcanic ash on people's health and aircraft safety, allowing flights to operate in the presence of the ash.

4.Just like the airlines, Import/Export businesses that rely on air transport for their survival, must look again at their contingency and continuity plans and act accordingly.

Let us not waste a good crises.

Dubai Air Show #dxb09

First of all I am writing this blog from my Blackberry, a first for me, so if it looks awful blame it on technology.

It is the last day of the Dubai Air Show #dxb09. It has been a hectic week for all of us. It has been a show that had been different than previous ones, it still had aviation professionals hurriedly going from one stand or chalet to another, looking for, following up or concluding business.

The first noticeable thing is the lack of mega commercial aircraft orders, so what, it is a recession and I see no reason why the region should bail out the industry again. A refreshing thing actually happened, we got to hear about all the equipment and services contracts that used to be drowned by mega aircraft orders, a reminder that the industry is more than a few aircraft manufacturers.


The other thing is the use of social media to cover the event, a thrilling experience which I am priviliged to have taken a tiny tiny minute part in along with giants like Flightglobal and @flightblogger, @runwaygirl, @mtargettuk and many others. We had probably the first Tweetup in an International Air Show.

For me, other than business meetings, it was an opportunity to meet friends and coleagues that I have not seen in many years. The real highlight and thrill was the making of new friends, ones that I followed and networked with on Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media. They became real live and fun people to be around.

It reminded me that an Air Show is not all business. It is about fun and enjoying one's friends company around something we all feel passionately about, aircraft and aviation.

#dxb09 has been a fun experience enriched with friends old and new, so, keep well guys and be good.

Dubai Air Show, the Twitter Experience

This is the first day of the Dubai Air Show and guess what, I was not there. However, I had a different Air Show experience, a social media coverage of the Air Show #dxb09. Sure, it is not the same as being there experiencing the buzz and excitement, but nevertheless this is my first experience of whether social media works in a venue that I am familiar with (my 7th air show).

Keeping an open mind, I followed the events as they unfolded and yes it was still exciting. Best thing is Breaking News, I actually got to hear about events, equipment orders and aircraft developments as they were actually being announced. Even the flying displays were reported by @flightglobal.

Credit has to go to @flightblogger and @RunwayGirl among many others for bringing about this experience.

It certainly was interesting, tomorrow will get to meet all those tweeples responsible for keeping us in the know