how delta airlines handled the us army excess baggage crisis
TRANSCRIPT
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Delta Airlines Charging US Army for excess baggage
What went wrong, and lessons learnt from the crisis
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Chapter 1What went wrong?
Delta Airlines charges $2800 in baggage fee from returning US soldiers
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Staff Sgts. Fred Hilliker and Robert O’Hair of a Reserve unit in Georgia, posted a video on Youtube outlining their plight of being charged for bags.
O’Hair explained that the unit showed up with four bags each but were told they could only bring three each and would have to be charged $200 for the fourth. The final tally came to more than $2,800, according to O’Hair.
Excess bag fee justified for returning soldiers?
He said there’s a contract between the U.S. government and Delta that allows them to bring up to four bags. He goes on to say that the fourth bag contained a weapons case. (A Delta rep says the contract does not allow soldiers to carry an extra bag.)
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Chapter 2The Impact and Anger
The video goes viral, reaching over 200,000 views on YouTube within a few hours of posting
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The news spread like wildfire…
Delta received 3.5X as many mentions on Twitter as all other US airlines combined, on 8 June 2011, and 8X their normal mentions!
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Mostly negative comments across the board
The story peaked between 4pm-5pm ET on June 8, 2011, with over 800 Twitter mentions an hour
Chapter 3Delta Responds
A blog post goes Live at 5:09 pm, followed by a Tweet by @DeltaAssist, immediately revising policy
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Delta posted a response through a blog post
Despite a public apology and policy change to accommodate more bags, emotional comments were received, almost all negative
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Top influencers tweet again…
This time, about the apology…
Chapter 4
Analysis of the crises handling
Despite the emotionally-charged discussions, Delta did probably the best job they could
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First, let’s understand…
American Airlines Flight 24
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Why Delta did the best job they could
1. This was a Bizzare crisis – Unexpected and something Delta probably never thought of
2. This was a baggage policy all airlines in the US followed, not just Delta (and most changed it following Delta)
3. Delta was fast in responding – within 2 hours of the topic peaking on traditional and social media
4. The response was not through a press release, but done on a blog – which is indeed the appropriate response to a YouTube video
5. Delta made sure that the response was personal, with the author relating personal stories
6. An Update was provided on the blog itself, based on the initial comments received
7. The detractors weren’t providing constructive feedback. Most were emotional rants, hence didn’t need regular responses
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In Conclusion
Recognizing the fact that Delta didn’t expect a response to a policy that’s existed for a long time, especially the response being so emotionally charged, they’ve probably done best job they could in managing this crisis by releasing a statement on the blog, and keeping it personal.
What do you think? Let’s discuss on Twitter (@simpliflying) and in comments.
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As the expert puts it…
“Never let a good crisis go to waste. Communicate and take action when the whole world is watching!”
- Rahm Emanuel
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Airline Twitter Sentiment Analysis Tool
Data Analysis courtesy of…
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