Public Relations Management Airline Company’s †Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Public Relations Management Airline Companys. Answer: Introduction This report is designed to provide a brief outline of the importance of Public Relation Management for a business organization. For this purpose, the accident faced by the Malaysian Airlines has been taken, which had lost an aircraft MH370 due to some unknown reasons. The report also discusses the MAs subsequent handling of its relationships with the families of the victims. Finally, the report concludes with some valuable recommendations to the company so as it can tackle such situations effectively in future. Analysis of the Situation A terrible situation was faced by the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 on 8th March, 2014, when it was travelling to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. Before takeoff, the flight lost contact with the air-traffic controller and disappeared from radar screens shortly thereafter. This disappearance of Malaysian flight became one of the biggest aviation mysteries of all time. It activated the multinational search and media interest over a million square miles which cost 10 million of dollars (Thompson et al., 2016). The aircraft was carried of twelve crew members, and over two hundred passengers from fourteen different countries. This mystery remained unsolved and the efforts of international rescue on this issue have emerged as the biggest in the history. The initial news in the response of the loss of flight MH370 was out on 8th March, 2014, at 7:24 (MYT). This delayed communication has caused a creditability gap and it led to the Malaysian Airlines to face crisis response operation and unexpected challenges. The crisis communication of the Airlines made the Public Relation team under a severe inquiry as it played the role of carrier (Howell, 2015). Over two hundred families of the passengers are still waiting for the answers and so does the rest of the public. The Malaysian government and Malaysian Airlines had declared with the Investigation Branch of Air Accidents on 24th March, 2014 that it has been assumed that the flight MH370 had drawn in the Southern part of Indian Ocean. They also assumed that beyond any reasonable doubt, there is no probability of the flights survival. However, the job of searching is still going on in order to get the confirmation of aircraft debris and crash site. This unbelievable incident has made the participants on face book and twitter attempt to receive as many opinions as possible (Jansen et al., 2016). The accident emerged as the nightmare for the Malaysian Airlines communication practitioners, and as a result, they were forced to fight with a huge number of criticisms, comments, and appeals for the information in real time on the social media. Crisis Management Theory From PR Perspective An organization can easily become exposed to the unexpected accidents, if it fails to manage the crisis effectively. Inability to apply Crisis Management can become as threat or destructive to the company and can disrepute it in the long-run. In context of Malaysian Airlines, public communication from Malaysian executives was made with confusion (Smith, and Marks, 2014). The investigators measured and determined the public relations efforts from Malaysian Airlines prospect to deal with the Crisis Management. It was apparent that Malaysia Airlines was not proactive and failed to anticipate the threats as its weapon. Although a Crisis Communication team was formed by the Malaysia Airlines, but the members were not given adequate training for tackling that exceptional situation. The government officials were acting as the crisis communicator for the airlines and it was dependent on them for communicating the information. Since government institutions were not interested in crisis management, they did not show any empathy to the families of victims. Also, they had dissimilar communicator communicating objectives than the Malaysian Airlines (Kaiser, 2014). Thus, it was only the affected organization which could effectively communicate with the families and relatives of the passengers and crew members. There were different kinds of public involved in the accident. Majority of them were external parties such as relatives of the victims, existing as well as the potential investors of the organization, and shareholders. Critical Evaluation The estimations have shown that dealing of Malaysian Airline loss of MH370 has been a public-relation hazard. The pitch was established during the initial days by the confusion of authorities, and conflicting messages. The greatest failing was the unwillingness to publish information. It made the families of the victims annoyed and upset. A heralded report was then released by the government of Malaysia on the vanishing of the flight. Moreover, various opposition parties of the government criticized that Malaysias ineffective governance system is the main cause of bad reputation of the company. On the other hand, some critics argued that Malaysia is more controlling than being democratic as it possesses a little transparency and answerability in government (Lee, and Han, 2016). However, these government officials are justified in their opinions because communication failure in the Airline crisis has covered up their success by introducing a unique alliance of nations to look for the flight. In oppose of this, from technical perspectives, many agencies stated that Malaysia did a great job using the insufficient resources. Also, in order to open up to its partners, and share sensitive details of its military radar system with China, the country has done more than the required call of duty. The organization used family communication, dark website, #MASAlert, and text messages to communicate the disaster and notify the victims family members. However, it was suggested that messages were required to be more personal and a phone call should have been made to each victims family. #MASAlert enabled social communication among the affected people, but it also resulted in a lot of criticism from the comments of the public. Could it happen again Considering the crisis of disappearance of MH370, questions were raised regarding the reasons about the difficulty faced in tracing the exact location of all aircraft while they are in the air (Trinanes et al., 2016). It may change at the end of the year 2018 because communications firm Iridium is likely to introduce sixty six new satellites that will be able track flights position and speed throughout the entire world. The CEO of Iridium, Daniel Colussey has stated that for the first time, an aircraft has not been surveilled over the poles. In this view, two satellite companies have already switched on and started returning the data. One of the Singapores newspapers, named The Independent newspaper over the duration of sixty two hours, the unique codes and positional data of around seventeen thousand planes are collected by one satellite. It covers oceans and vulnerable regions where radar is not able to reach. This new development indicates that the altitude and positioning of aircrafts will become more accurate in future, which will make it harder for the planes to vanish the way the MH370 did. Conclusion On the basis of above discussions, it can be concluded that Malaysian Airlines has confronted a difficult situation with the relatives and friends of the lost passengers. Due to this terrible situation, the company also lost its financial fortunes. It can be said that recovering the airline brand will require a major communications shift and international communications agencies. Also, the Malaysian Airlines tried to manage the crisis using social media platforms (Mujeebu, 2016). A huge number of real time information was appeared online and spread the crisis on the global level. Overall, the company failed to handle the disappearance of the flight and to act empathetically towards the families of victims. Recommendations The Malaysian Airlines could safeguard its public image if it would have acted ethically and wisely. It would have been much better to be fully honest and transparent in the public and media from the initial day of the crisis. The CEO should have been alert the public and communicate the situation with the public when it was confirmed that they had lost the contact with the aircraft. Next, the organization should have made proper arrangements for establishing a crisis center immediately for the families and relatives at the airport (Azmi et al., 2016). Malaysia Airlines should always be prepared in future for the worse happenings and the vanishing of MH370 was indeed the worse. It should also ensure that public relations are properly managed during any sort of crisis by giving first priority to those public, here the victims families who are directly affected by the crisis. References Azmi, M.N.L., Rahman, N.A.A.A., Halim, Z.A. and Hamid, M.F.A., (2016) Crisis Management in Communication: A Study on MH370, MH17 and QZ8501 Aviation Tragedies.Media Watch,7(3), pp.281-298. Howell, G.V., (2015) MH370 All lives lost: the Black SwanDisaster Confirmed with a 26 Word Txt.Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal,16(1), pp.8-21. Jansen, E., Coppini, G. and Pinardi, N., (2016) Drift simulation of MH370 debris using superensemble techniques.Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences,16(7), pp.1623-1628. Kaiser, S.A., (2014) Legal considerations about the missing malaysia airlines flight MH 370.Air and Space Law,39(4), pp.235-244. Lee, C. and Han, L., (2016) Faith-based organization and transnational voluntarism in China: a case study of the Malaysia airline MH370 incident.Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations,27(5), pp.2353-2373. Mujeebu, M.A., (2016) The disappearance of MH370 and the search operationsThe role of technology and emerging research challenges.IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine,31(3), pp.6-16. Smith, W.H. and Marks, K.M., (2014) Seafloor in the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 search areaEos, Transactions American Geophysical Union,95(21), pp.173-174. Thompson, M., Cooper, J. and Harman, J., (2016) The Search for MH370: Where Are We Now?.Air and Space Law,41(6), pp.459-473. Trinanes, J.A., Olascoaga, M.J., Goni, G.J., Maximenko, N.A., Griffin, D.A. and Hafner, J., (2016) Analysis of flight MH370 potential debris trajectories using ocean observations and numerical model results.Journal of Operational Oceanography,9(2), pp.126-138.