Customers of British Airways let out a collective sigh of relief on the morning of Sept. 6 when the company announced that flights were returning to normal after several hours of problems. An undisclosed IT glitch disrupted the airline’s check-in process at airports around the world, causing lengthy delays that began the evening of Sept. 5 in North America.
But for many that were stuck on the ground, the lack of information from British Airways was less than ideal.
@British_Airways can I dm with anyone about this?
— Jack Maddox (@MaddoxJack) September 6, 2016
@MaddoxJack @British_Airways this is crazy that my good friend Jack can't get an answer on his query.
— Brett Borzooyeh (@brettborz) September 6, 2016
.@British_Airways odd comms strategy to say nothing for more than 2hrs on issue affecting every one of your passengers.
— Matthew Walker (@walkerswalking) September 6, 2016
Seriously @DENAirport and @British_Airways we've already been delayed 3hrs, now PLEASE give us our bags pic.twitter.com/Q4MkWlACIC
— Anna Walters Hewson (@AnnaHewson1) September 6, 2016
While the company responded directly to many complaints made on Twitter, the New York Times said the responses closely resembled statements made to news media. Each response on Twitter was nearly identical—an interesting take on communicating with a hostile audience.
Unlike other outages experienced by airlines like Delta and Southwest, British Airways focused on responding to people individually on Twitter. The company released statements to journalists, but there’s no press release on its website, nor is there any general information on Twitter, outside a notification that customers were being checked in as normal at two British airports.
While responding to disgruntled customers directly on Twitter is a good start, whatever goodwill British Airways secures is likely to deteriorate when users don’t get any other information. Even though Delta’s recent outage was on a much larger scale, communicating hourly updates to customers was a large part of the company’s ability to stay on top of the crisis. Delta also put a face on the company by posting a video apology by CEO Ed Bastian that was released on social media.
It looks like British Airways is in the clear for now. The undisclosed IT glitch is taken care of and flights seem to be resuming their normal schedules. But the lack of communication from the brand to its customers may have left a more lasting impression than spending a few hours delayed in an airport.
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