Southwest Airlines takes reputation hit, but still has time to recover, experts say
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — The way Southwest Airlines has handled its crisis has come under intense scrutiny.
As KDKA money editor Jon Delano reports, some experts think the airline will have serious challenges restoring its reputation.
With 4,000 departures a day and servicing over 120 cities, including Pittsburgh, Southwest Airlines has generally enjoyed a good reputation for reasonably priced and reliable flights across the nation.
But the way they've responded to this crisis raises doubts about the airline's future, starting with its lack of transparency.
"They needed to be out there explaining in fairly simple and straightforward terms how it is they got themselves in a mess that's this deep," says Scott Nason, an airline consultant and retired senior executive at American Airlines.
Nason says Southwest has not been up front about why it's still canceling thousands of flights.
"I ran this function for American Airlines for several years, and I do not understand how they could have gotten in this situation such that for four or five days they couldn't even operate half their schedule," says Nason.
Crisis management experts say Southwest is failing the key tests for handling a crisis.
"We want to be timely, truthful, empathic, consistent, and coordinated, and we want to talk about facts, feelings and actions," says Oliver Schmidt, CEO of a Piittsburgh-based crisis management firm, C4CS, that has advised companies in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, including airlines.
"Not everything has worked so well. For instance, timeliness, truthfulness. I haven't really encountered a lot of empathy there or definitely not enough. Whether the facts have all been disclosed is another question," notes Schmidt.
The end result could be a loss of customers to other airlines, as Southwest's reputation takes a hit.
"There is a relatively short window as far as a lot of crises are concerned in order to safeguard your reputation," says Schmidt.
Unlike the other major airlines who have long since recovered from last weekend's weather, Southwest is still struggling to make things right.
Schmidt says it may not be too late.
"Stakeholder relationships can be repaired. One, it's not going to be easy, Jon. Two, it's going to take time, and three, they'd better get started as soon as possible."
"This is one of those times where they really did it badly in a big way, but it's a rarity for Southwest Airlines," says Tim O'Brien, a Pittsburgh public relations consultant.
"So I do think it is definitely something they can recover from."
O'Brien says Southwest needs to move quickly.
"So they have to say what the problem was, what they are doing to fix it, and they need to reach out to those customers who were affected."
Nason says Southwest could compensate those who suffered actual losses, post reduced airfares in the weeks to come, and give extra reward miles for travel.
"Something to say that not only are we sorry but we recognize that we caused you harm and we'd like to help to mitigate the damage that we did," he adds.
"The number one thing you have to do is perform and perform well," says O'Brien.
"There will be a certain amount of attrition, at least in the short term from people who did fly your airline. But people understand over time if there are no further incidents they will go back to Southwest."
Right now, Southwest still has a crisis to manage. Experts say how it does so over the next week may dictate its future as an airline.
