We can’t talk about aerospace PR without addressing the need to be prepared for the possibility of something going wrong. Even the smallest component failure can result in a significant crisis in aerospace and it is vital that your business and brands are protected from the potentially disastrous effects of an unplanned negative event.
History is littered with examples of businesses who have been ruined by a crisis. The common theme among many of these is not that the company was ruined by the crisis itself, but that it was ruined by the damage done to its reputation as a direct result of how they managed the situation.
When things go wrong the instinct of many people is to bury their heads in the sand. Not face the media out of fear that they will be targeted or may say the wrong thing. The truth is that if you create an information vacuum by failing to communicate, the media will almost certainly fill this vacuum with speculation and cobbled together stories which are very likely to be significantly harmful. It is better to engage positively with the media and actively feed them the information that you are able to release than to leave them to create their own news without you.
The lesson from this is very simple. Be prepared. The more seriously you take planning, the more committed you are to making certain that your business is ready to react positively if the unthinkable should occur, the more likely you are to emerge not just in one piece but actually with your reputation positively enhanced.
We have a comprehensive crisis communications preparedness service that we have devised from extensive experience of working with aerospace industry clients, including IATA and Lufthansa.