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Strategy that delivers
CASE STUDY - ASH CLOUD AIRSPACE CLOSURE - APRIL 2010
In April 2010 volcanic events at Eyjafjallökull in Iceland caused significant disruption to air travel across Western and Northern Europe over an initial period of six days.
From 14 to 20 April, ash from the volcanic eruption covered large areas of Northern Europe and led to the closure of most of the European airspace. Consequently, around 20 countries closed their airspace to commercial airline traffic affecting around 10 million travellers.
A very high proportion of flights within, to, and from Europe were cancelled, creating the highest level of air travel disruption since the Second World War.
The Foreign Office provided consular assistance to thousands of British nationals around the world, however most were stuck abroad for the duration of the closure.
It is estimated that the industry lost something in the region of £50 million to £100 million a day and most of those losses were suffered by the aviation industry.
THE IMPACT
The impact on Virgin Atlantic was substantial with thousands of passengers stranded across the world. The airline lost around £50 million in the six days.
CRISIS RESPONSE
We were alerted to the issue by operations and Gold Command was activated.
We activated our crisis comms response plan and our 24/7 rota. We played an active role in gold command ensuring the operational decisions taken were in line with our communications plan.
Our operations team handled the disruption as they would any other disruption causing cancelled flights, but the volume of customers displaced caused a huge volume of calls into our customer contact centre. Social media was also struggling to cope given at the time this channel of customer interaction was very limited.
Media interest from the outset was very high especially as it was known to some media that Sir Richard Branson’s own plans were disrupted.
We also had a media trip in America at the time who were unable to return to the UK. Whilst hosted and looked after they were very active in telling the story first hand of the impact of the closure. We managed this throughout the crisis.
Whilst we had a template for the communications this was a unique situation and so required continual review and revision.
IMPLEMENTING THE CRISIS RESPONSE &
ACTIVATING THE CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS FOLLOWING GOLD ACTIVATION
Gold Command was activated fairly early on in the crisis since airspace was closed and was projected to be so for sometime. Roles and responsibilities were assigned and a full comms pack drawn up ready for media handling. An added complexity was a media press trip that we had in America at the time which was unable to return to the UK. We worked around the clock to execute the media recovery plan. CEO Steve Ridgway was also put up for interview and appropriate briefings conducted beforehand.
STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT &
WORKING WITH OTHER ORGANISATIONS DURING THE CRISIS
Given the scale of the closure numerous stakeholders were involved in conference calls including NATS (National Air Traffic Services, the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority), DfT (Department for Transport), Heathrow Airport and Gatwick Airport. They had activated their own crisis procedures. Sir Richard Branson was also very involved given the level of disruption and impact to Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Holidays. His own travel plans were also impacted. We ensured he was frequently updated on the situation, media handling and media coverage.
RECOVERY
RETURNING CUSTOMERS TO THEIR DESTINATION & SIR RICHARD RESPONSE
We had to work hard to get customers to their destinations as quickly as possible once airspace reopened and we referenced the difficulties of this within our statements, especially for customers in Orlando and the Caribbean. Steve Ridgway continued media interviews apologising for this. During this recovery phase Sir Richard Branson also called upon the government for compensation as a result of the decision to completely close airspace. He was very active with the media in this announcement, which we handled.