American Airlines talks itself into a credibility crisis
The travails of American Airlines in reoganising itself under the protection of generous US bankruptcy laws hasn’t really caught public attention here, but an attempt to misrepresent history by its CEO Tom Horton demonstrates how airline managements can destroy their credibility with a PR driven disregard for the truth.
It remains to be seen whether Australia’s general media would be as vigilant or unforgiving of one of our carriers compared to this story in The Star-Telegram in Dallas, American Airlines’ home town.
As a general personal observation, media managers seem to feed off a desire by corporations to own their reality, and amend or emphasise it according to what they think will serve that entity’s purpose, and to hell with history.
This was abundantly evident in the willful dishonesty and callous disregard for the public interest by TEPCO, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, in relation to the Fukishima disaster, which our children’s children will have to live with.
Similar distortions are commonplace in big pharma, and of course, politics. People lie, artfully or otherwise, to say anything to gain or retain power, and from all parts of the political spectrum.
But in Australia, we in the media do seem to be much harder on politicians than commercial advertisers, and returning to Mr Horton’s extraordinarily loose grip on historical accuracy, his efforts are no where near as gratuitous as some of these examples in the non-airline world.
Does it matter to us what happens to American? Probably no more than a single flight by Qantas into Dallas Fort Worth each day matters to that carrier. If US Airways gets control of the ailing enterprise it might change its name, to US Airways, and it might well exit the oneworld alliance, or, it might build on the Qantas relationship and achieve everything with it that Qantas and its customers could wish for.
What matters for us in the American Airlines epic is what we learn about candid, truthful and useful corporate communications, and the capacity of all media to keep companies honest.
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I noticed this article in today’s Age, about the 19 hour Qantas flight “Dallas to Sydney, via Brisbane” but no mention that it is also via LAX (which I understand from this blog?). The author “flew courtesy of Qantas”.
Time to read more than one opinion on the subject, sir, although that would limit the bashing that is so prevalent in your blog. USAirways president Doug Parker has already announced that American Airlines would be the surviving carrier, and that oneworld would be the chosen alliance. What the Star-Telegram article didn’t mention, of course, is the fact Parker is so desperate to merge with anyone that he will make promises to other unions guaranteeing jobs and benefits, yet his own unions have yet to combine years after USAir and America West merged.
Michael R James,
There is a misunderstanding. The DFW service is scheduled as non-stop from Sydney and one stop via Brisbane on the return. If I garbled a reference to this causing the misunderstanding my apologies.
JSD
The credibility issue that drew my attention is this section of the Star-Telegram article, as I recalled the TWA purchase well, and for Horton to describe it in the manner he did made we wonder what exactly he or his publicists were thinking?
Your thoughts on this revision of the facts are welcome.
QUOTE: Here’s the quote Horton will never live down: “People said American sat out the consolidation wave of the last decade,” Horton told The Wall Street Journal last week. “No, we didn’t. We started it, with the TWA acquisition.”
This is such a stretch that it’s fair to wonder if it was a slip of the tongue. It wasn’t. I’ve heard the same statement from American more than once, during background interviews. This time, Horton went on the record with it — for the Journal’s national readership, no less.
To outsiders, including those who pulled off successful airline mergers, Horton was claiming to be an architect of modern airline consolidation.
That’s on par with Al Gore and the Internet. Gore never said he invented the ‘Net, but he took a lot of credit, and opponents and comics wouldn’t let it go. The line stuck, because it fit the narrative that Gore would go to any length to impress.
In this case, Horton is trying way too hard to portray American as a consolidator.
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/07/28/4134144/american-airlines-panic-attack.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy
Ben,
Yikes, I must be going nuts. I swear I read it multiple times and in comments that QF didn’t have any planes currently configured to fly to DFW non-stop from Oz.
Or is it that this is new with appropriately configured planes? And why it is getting a spot in the MSM?
I couldn’t work out why the SMH ran the story either. The range payload capability of the 747-400ER falls short of SYD-DFW unless payload is trimmed except in favourable conditions. Qantas tries a number of ways to get it there. Fewer passenger, no freight, and so forth. The early flight had problems like making the distance without all the checked bags, which is not funny if you are have to buy a change of clothes for your first meeting, and so forth. The problems also saw a few early diversions to Nadi or Noumea on the way back to Brisbane, making for a much more tedious trip back to Sydney than just going to LAX for a non-stop. Since then Qantas has intensively managed the flights, and if a day out it sees a risk of conditions requiring an additional stop on the way back it diverts a proportion of the passengers via LAX.
As I understand it, their current version of the A380 would take a modest payload hit too on the way back, but the new built higher gross weight version that will be delivered from later in 2013 would probably just about make it full most of the year.
However Qantas deferred the last two deliveries, which could have been built with the extra capability. Daft!
Ben, the American Airlines Chapter 11 bankruptcy debacle stands in stark contract to plans by another Oneworld carrier which is about to emerge from bankruptcy. Japan Airlines plans to raise $8.5 billion by re-listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on 19 September 2012 (see http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/362d598e-dd0d-11e1-99f3-00144feab49a.html#axzz22Qf3l4Xa).
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