While the saga of Jetstars’ stranded All Black fans became a communications quagmire, with
claim and counter-claim, there is one particular element we would like to reflect upon. It is the way Jetstar’s spokesperson responded to questions about the incident during an interview with Radio NZ’s Morning Report last Monday.
Jetstar’s spokeman Simon Westaway was not prepared to give any ground, let alone apologise. The key messages were: These people were late; we will debate this any time anywhere; we carry 12 million people a year.
To paraphrase: No ifs or buts, we were right; these people were wrong.
This approach even seemed to ruffle Morning Report’s nice guy Geoff Robinson, and was almost certainly the reason for on-going criticisms of the airline, some of which became quite toxic in the online space.
Jetstar seems to have seriously misread the New Zealand culture as, in all likelihood, a local company and a local spokesperson would have been more conciliatory with messages like:
We take all complaints seriously; we will review the matter thoroughly and examine our processes; and If we are wrong, we’ll take it on the chin and talk to these customers about making it right. (Apparently there was CCTV footage that could be reviewed).
Such an approach would have de-escalated the situation which quickly went from simmering to boiling.
If you are going to adopt this staunch, brash approach – no nonsense, no vacillation, let’s move on – just be sure you’re bulletproof… Today (Friday), Jetstar’s own reported actions suggest the airline did make some errors. They are apologising to some customers, offering discount vouchers and reviewing their check-in performance.
Public 1, Jetstar 0
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The movie Food Inc will be screened soon in New Zealand. It’s likely to excite a few, exasperate others, and cause many more to think about the future of our food, where it comes from and what the future holds, especially the growing number among us who have little or no idea about where our food comes from.
There are two things I ponder about the swine flu. Can the precautions we take make any real difference? How long will our media sustain the almost-hourly case count, particularly as later today our overburdened health authorities’ switch from their containment strategy to a management strategy?
I never thought that I’d end up working as a journalist. In fact I vowed I wouldn’t. Like many of us, as a teen I lost a dear friend and his untimely, accidental death became the front page lead in the New Zealand Herald. I was livid and so was his family. It seemed so unjust and invasive that his dying was the business of anyone else. My friend had drowned in a known danger spot and the story, although painful and in this case reported inaccurately and sensationally, was news. It was news because it brought home the very real danger of swimming on a treacherous beach on a day when the beach was closed due to massive seas.