I raised an eyebrow at Airbus’s latest PR issue at the Paris Air Show covered in Businessweek. I even felt a tinge of empathy as I imagined the PR manager cursing and pulling his hair out as he hung up the phone to the journalist who joined the dots over selling the fuel efficient per passenger and ‘environmentally friendly’ A380 to a private individual.
Quite simply, if Airbus had linked in its PR messaging to a CSR policy concerning the new A380 i.e. it’s not going to sell this huge plane to individuals, or license its use to have a minimum number of passengers (based on more environmentally-friendly fuel efficieny), than this may been avoided. The policy just needed to be a bit more foresightful: something concrete to back up its messaging other than a metric. Or, maybe, Airbus simply wanted to sell as many planes as fast as possible.
It comes down to how communications should be linked across the entire organization and have a role at C-Suite level…I won’t bore you with the mantra.
Friday, smiling on, I searched the latest chatter on this on technorati – here and here, for example. I then came across how aviation enthusiat (I think he used to be a Qantas Ambassador) John Travolta is test piloting these beasts. Hmmm.
Joining the communication dots myself, that tinge of empathy has gone away.
Posted by Keith Morrison 
