Is it too late now to say sorry for O’Leary?

It is 2017 when the Irish airline Ryanair is facing major problems. More than hundreds of flights had to be canceled due to a shortage of available pilots. A problem that has not just popped up; in recent years there has been a backlog of pilots taking holidays. A change in the law in Ireland makes it necessary for all pilots to take their holidays at short notice, resulting in too little manpower to allow all flights to continue. At least 700,000 passengers have suffered as a result of the canceled flights since September 2017. The airline indicates that it is trying to offer everyone a replacing flight or give your money back, but is that enough? Ryanair's Chief Executive Officer, Michael O'Leary, says “sorry” for all the damage that has been done. But: “Is it too late now to say sorry?” It is about time to take a closer look at Ryanair's crisis communication.

Copyright: Ciara Spain/extra.ie

The way to go

Saying sorry is always an option but is it the right option to limit reputation damage as an airline if you are aware of problems that have been going on for years? According to Coombs' Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) it is not. This type of crisis falls into the preventable cluster; "the organization knowingly placed people at risk, took inappropriate actions or violated a law/regulation" (Coombs, 2007, p. 168). Therefore, there is a high attribution of crisis responsibility and according to the SCCT the rebuilding crisis response strategies should have been used. But what did O’Leary do?

The way not to go
Rebuilding crisis response strategies consist of offering compensation and apologizing (Benoit, 1997; Coombs, 2007). Compensation - check; the victims are offered money or new flights. Apology - fail; the CEO said sorry, but according to Coombs (2007) saying sorry is not enough. The organization must take full responsibility for the crisis and ask stakeholders for forgiveness...I haven't seen or heard anything like that, did you? Instead of taking the blame and asking stakeholders for forgiveness, O'Leary did something that is even more dangerous for the reputation of the organization; he was mixing two crisis response strategies. He indicated that the canceled flights were also caused by bad weather and strikes by air traffic controllers. With this, he uses the diminishing crisis response strategies, which you should apply when an organization is not fully responsible. But in my opinion, there is only one organization responsible for the arrangement of the holidays of your own pilots, right?

Best tip for Mr. O’Leary, and Ryanair
O'Leary's image is not very positive at the moment, and his image is linked to the image of the company he stands for (Denner, Heitzler & Koch, 2018); in order to boost his own image and that of Ryanair, he can learn a lot from Mr. Coombs. It is not too late to say sorry now but apologizing, then blaming someone else, and still offering compensation does not come across as trustworthy. So don't mix different crisis communication strategies if you want to limit reputation damage. Just take responsibility, ask for forgiveness and offer a compensation.

Michael O'Leary - CEO Ryanair
Copyright: ALAMY/thesun.ie

Best tip for you; just do not fly with Ryanair!

The author
Vivienne Raijmakers, 26 years old, is a MSc Corporate Communication student at the University of Amsterdam. Did an internship at Edelman PR, so indeed passionate about PR and especially the field of crisis communication.

Literature
Benoit, W. L. (1997). Image repair discourse and crisis communication. Public relations review, 23(2), 177-186.

Coombs, W. T. (2007). Protecting organization reputations during a crisis: The development and application of situational crisis communication theory. Corporate reputation review, 10(3), 163-176.

Denner, N., Heitzler, N., & Koch, T. (2018). Presentation of CEOs in the media: A framing analysis. European Journal of Communication, 33(3), 271-289.