Social Media Learnings from The Crash of Asiana 214

Being based in The San Francisco Bay Area, the tragic crash of Asiana Airlines flight 214 at SFO on July 6, hit especially close to home for all of us at Social Jumpstart.  As the story unfolded it was interesting to observe how various airlines and airports utilized their social media channels to help (or not help) both their customers and the public stay updated on how the situation might impact them.  The various actions (or in-actions) can serve as a case study for any organization on the use of social media as an important communications channel during a disaster or other special circumstance.

First, let’s point out why companies tangentially involved in an event of this nature should be on their social channels in the first place.

News of the 11:27 am crash was being broadcast nationally within 10 minutes of the incident.  SFO, one of the nations busiest airports, was shut down and this was going to affect travel plans for hundreds of thousands of people.  So a lot of people were going to be looking for information on how this would impact them.

Effective use of social channels would provide both great customer service and reduced costs (less people calling airlines reservation centers) for carriers that knew how to react.  It also offered an opportunity for area airports to help the public with information too. Predictably, some airlines did much better than others – here’s what we saw:

The Winners:

American Airlines, Southwest Airlines & San Jose International Airport

Within an hour, American Airlines had a relaxed ticketing and change policy in place for passengers and was tweeting about this new information. Regardless if you prefer to fly with AA or not, they are among the best airlines in the use of social media for their customers.

Also within 60 minutes of the accident, Southwest Airlines had expressed their sympathy and directed Twitter followers to their flight status page for the latest information.

San Jose International Airport was prompt in using Twitter to announce that they were receiving diverted flights and to check with individual airlines on status.

Of the above, only San Jose Airport properly used a hash tag to help people find the information quicker so both AA and SWA could have done a better job in this area.

The Nice Try (but missed the mark)

United, Virgin America and SFO

The largest airline at SFO is United Airlines. A full 3 hours after the crash they still had no mention of the incident and how they were handling the airport closure. We appreciate that things were hectic, however, we believe UAL should have made it a priority to utilize Twitter and other social channels to help inform and direct customers.  They finally posted information about 6 hours after the crash.

United is now using Twitter to provide ongoing updates – so this is a step in the right direction!

Virgin America Airlines is based near SFO and is known as a progressive and forward thinking airline brand. They too were very slow to get information on their channels but we do give extra credit for them actually using promoted Tweets to help passengers.

And SFO itself reacted quickly but was posting misinformation. The 1:30pm press conference did not happen and no update was given. Again, we appreciate that this team was extraordinarily busy and were very quick to post notification, however, their follow on and follow up was lacking.

The Losers

Delta Airlines, US Airways & Oakland Airport

No mention, no instructions, no nothing even a day later from all three. Poor showing by two carriers with large SFO operations and Oakland Airport, which would be a key diversion destination for flights.

The Lesson

Social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, provide an amazingly fast and effective means to serve your customers.  These examples show the best of class and the worst of class in social media use and, good bad and in between, we can all learn from them.

What are your takeaways? How do you think can social media be utilized best in emergency response?

-Mike Wolpert