Weber Shandwick, one of the world’s leading global public relations firms, is up for an award for Crisis Management for their effort on behalf of American Airlines in the PR News Platinum PR Awards. These awards honor “the most innovative and successful public relations campaigns of the past year,” according to a recent email I received announcing the finalists.
Weber Shandwick entered their efforts for “First Bag Fee: American Airlines Takes Action to Combat Unprecedented Rise in Fuel Costs” in the category that is described as such: Communications surrounding any crisis, from product recalls to executive malfeasance to terrorist attacks are eligible in this category.
Instituting a baggage fee requires crisis management? The other entrants dealt with:
* The Hijacking of the Biscaglia: Communicating with Families During a Hostage Crisis
* Saving American Manufacturing
* January 2008 Storm Response (by Pacific Gas and Electric Company )
* Vectren Energy Delivery’s Response to Major Winter Storms
While I don’t have the opportunity to look at the entry, nor have I found the original press releases, I’m wondering whether the crisis was the actual instituting of the baggage fee (and is that a crisis for American Airlines or its passengers?) or the “unprecedented rise in fuel costs.”
By looking through the news coverage from that time last year, American Airlines completely touts the cost of fuel as the main reason that they have added this fee (at that time $15 for the first bag, coming just two weeks after putting a $25 fee on the second bag).
Peter Pae of the Los Angeles Times reported May 22, 2008:
With oil prices hitting new records almost daily, the nation’s largest air carrier, American Airlines, announced drastic steps Wednesday to “remain viable,” including charging new fees for all checked baggage, slashing domestic flights and laying off thousands of workers.
It was one of the most extreme moves yet by a U.S. airline, and came as the price of oil jumped Wednesday to $133.17 a barrel, up $4.19.
Good spin if I do say so myself. What’s a poor airline to do when fuel costs are putting them out of business, not to mention all the other expenses of running an airline? As USA Today travel columnist David Grossman was quoted in this article on gothamist.com:
A Boeing 767 flying one way from New York to Los Angeles consumes approximately 9,000 gallons of jet fuel. If 150 passengers are aboard, that equates to 60 gallons of jet fuel per passenger. At the current price of $4 per gallon of jet fuel, the fuel cost of that one-way flight is $240, or $480 round trip per passenger. But that’s just the fuel cost and does not include the cost of owning and maintaining the airplane, plus all the computer systems, facilities and employees necessary to make the journey possible.
But wait, what are they doing now that jet fuel is $1.85/gallon or $77.4/barrel, less than half what it was last year? Have they rolled back the charges? Are we all dancing in the streets?
Hmmm, not exactly. In fact, American Airlines’ fees that were supposedly instituted just because of the high cost of fuel are about to rise on Aug. 14 from $15 to $20 for the first bag and from $25 to $30 for the second bag. So what is the crisis this time? Weber Shandwick, we need you!
After several decades working in a variety of jobs as a newspaper writer, event publicist, communications specialist, and marketing director, Karen Cummings is now “retired” and working on Travelers United’s social media and newsletters in addition to occasionally contributing a travel-related article to TU’s blog. She lives close to her family in Fryeburg, Maine, and travels as often as she can.
