Air Canada and Social Media

 As more and more people are connected online, companies need to jump in as well. Air Canada is a good example of a company with a horrible social media reputation who turned it around and is doing great.

Air Canada Social Media: Major Events

Tanner's Broken Wheelchair: August 2010

Tanner is a 10-year-old boy with a terminal illness who was flying to NYC with his aunt to live out some of his final wishes. On the flight, his electric wheelchair was damaged. While Air Canada was fixing the damage, they didn't communicate their efforts to Tanner and his aunt or the public, leading Tanner's aunt to tweet: "So. @aircanada killed Tanner's wheelchair. We're now stuck at La Guardia. #tutusfortanner." Her tweet caused an outcry on social spheres, yet Air Canada gave no responses. Even though the company fixed the wheelchair and later flew Tanner and a cousin to Disney World, they never communicated to the angry public how they made the situation right.

 This whole incident was labeled a "disastrous public relations episode" and prompted not only the public and social sphere criticism, but responses from several news outlets and bloggers about how Air Canada (among other Canadian companies) was failing at social media.

One reporter offered five tips to Air Canada on improving their social media:
1. Listen well, and often
2. Reach out to the individual
3. Reach out to everyone
4. Keep posting updates
5. Keep the conversation going

Snow Storm: December 2010

Air Canada had an opportunity to redeem itself just a few months later when unexpected snow storms shut down London Heathrow Airport. Flights were being delayed and cancelled, and people wanted answers: “Our customers wanted to know what was happening to their flight and their first reaction was to go online or contact our call centers,” said Mathieu Lagacé, Community Manager at Air Canada. “In situations like this social media allows us to use new and different channels to communicate operational updates in a timely manner.”

Unlike the wheelchair incident from August, this time Air Canada got it right. Following the tips reported earlier, Air Canada interacted with thousands of customers, sharing up-to-dated information on the delays and responding to personal problems. “We knew we were on the right track when CBC News told travelers that for up to date information and travel advisories, they should start following Air Canada on Twitter,” noted Lagace.

Labor Negotiations: October 2011

While the previous incidents mainly concerned working with customers, in October 2011 Air Canada learned a lesson about interacting with and hearing employees' social media as well. During labor negotiations between Air Canada and the flight attendants' union, CUPE, proposed contracts failed twice, mainly due to the more than 3,600 flight attendants sharing their thoughts and frustrations about the contracts on a Facebook page. The flight attendants' actions demonstrated that "online, workers can form and express opinions that don't reflect the positions taken by their union. And those votes can cohere into large blocs. . . . Now, workers’ ability to connect and discuss can sow doubt the union is doing an adequate job. The result, for all parties, is disorder. Air Canada executives are reportedly ‘taken aback’ that the flight attendants are questioning the legitimacy of their union representatives.”

The lesson for unions is clear: engage with your members on all media platforms, period. The price of exclusion is high. Companies, for their part, should support broader, freer communications between unions and members. Executives need to know that the messages they receive from the union reflect the will of the employees--and that tentative deals result in collective agreements that produce lasting labor peace."

Worker Strike: March 23, 2012

Just last Friday, Air Canada had another opportunity to demonstrate their social media savvy. When Air  Canada workers spontaneously went on strike, Air Canada flights were severely delayed and sometimes cancelled. The social media response of customers was huge, particularly on twitter where they tweeted about what was happening. While most of the passengers' frustrations were directed toward the workers and not the company, Air Canada responded on twitter. They replied to individual comments as well as posted updates about the strike and what they were doing to resolve it. Their actions in the social sphere smoothed over another potential public relations disaster, showing again that they learned from the wheelchair incident how to best leverage social media.

Seventeen

This weekend was another Winkel weekend. Gerrit's dad flew in on Friday evening and his brother came in from BYU-I on Saturday afternoon. Saturday evening we went to a wedding reception for Gerrit's cousin Kevin and his new wife Braylin which was lovely. On Sunday we had a big family party to celebrate Grandpa Winkel's 80th birthday. We ate Grandpa's favorite food/snacks (like roasted unsalted peanuts, wheat thins, and orange cake) and had fun visiting with all the aunts, uncles, and cousins. We loved having Gerrit's dad and brother stay with us and we had lots of fun with family.

As we visited with family one story came up about Grandma Allen (Grandma Winkel's sister) and how when she was very very old she used to say that inside she still felt like she was 17. Even though I'm not very old, I already relate with that. Sometimes I think, am I really a college graduate, now getting my master's? Have I really been married for two and a half years? To me those things make me sound old, but really I hardly feel different than I did at 17. I was thinking about this and I got an email from one of my old roommates with some pictures from our most recent roommate evening. Four out of the original six of us got together with our husbands for snacks and games, and we had a blast. Looking at the pictures made me laugh and confirmed that however old I get, I'm pretty sure I'll still feel like--and with these girls act like--I'm 17. And I love it. :)

What I Learned at the Legislature

In Utah the state legislature is a part-time legislature and just meets for a few months at the beginning of every year. Needless to say it is a crazy time as they try and get everything done for the year. Both last session (2011) and this most recently ended session (2012) I was able to participate as an advocate for alcohol control. I've done quite a bit of research on alcohol laws and alcohol policy and I've been able to work with and provide my research to several organizations in advocating for public health and safety measures. Though my experience is limited to these two sessions, I've been reflecting on what I learned from working with legislature, and I have come to two main conclusions: 1) just because it's true doesn't mean people believe you, and 2) legislators don't care about you (or your issue). Let me explain.

1) Just because it's true doesn't mean people believe you

I have a bachelor's degree in economics and during my time in the program one of the things I had pounded into me was to consult the research. For most academics, research means everything, and now as a public policy graduate student I tend to go to the research to learn about different policies and their likely impacts. Well in the case of alcohol policy, the economic and public health literature is very, very clear: more alcohol leads to more problems and more social costs (in economic speak, to negative externalities). I'm not just talking about a few papers here; I mean a huge body of literature that all comes to this same conclusion. We're not saying there should be an alcohol ban, but it has significant enough problems that it shouldn't be flowing through the streets.

Well once I learned all this I thought it would be pretty easy to convince legislators and other stakeholders that control policies are important. Imagine my surprise when I would present the research--the academic, peer-reviewed, published research--and people would say to me, "I don't believe it." Really? You don't believe hundreds of studies from all over this and other countries done by academics and professionals that all say the same thing? Because ignoring that is a great way to make policy. It drove me crazy. Of course not everyone responded that way (I'd say that most did not) and we were able to help thwart a movement to privatize Utah's alcohol market in part because of the extensive research. But I was always surprised at the people who just refused to believe it.

2) Legislators don't care about you (or your issue)

This is not a slight on legislators. Rather it's an observation that to be a legislator means to have to know about hundreds of issues, not just yours. So, even though your one or two issues (for me it was alcohol policy) are important to you and you are passionate about them, that doesn't mean legislators will be; they don't really have time to be. For example, I had meetings set up with legislators who would cancel on me hours before we were supposed to meet. At first I would be disappointed and frustrated--don't they know how important this is?!--but I realized they probably had to go meet about a different issue that someone else was passionate about. And so my issue got pushed out. That's kind of the point of advocacy though. You have to show legislators, who would otherwise never think about your issue out of hundreds of others they have to consider, why your issue matters. You have to make them care.

Oh, Provo

Lately I've spent a lot of time thinking about where we will be moving/living for the next few years while Gerrit is in law school. We're still waiting to hear back about our applications, and so there are so many places we could be in just a few months: Chicago, LA, NYC, North Carolina... But thinking about all these places we could go has also made me reflect on the time I've spent here in Provo and on what a unique little town it is. A good friend of mine from my senior year of high school recently started a blog with her sister called "BCN Sister Secrets." The idea is that every week they post one look, one book, one spot, and one song to share the best (that you might not even know about) of Barcelona. So I thought about that for Provo: what would be a look, book, spot, or song to describe it here? Where would I direct people coming to visit? Mostly, what is it about Provo that I love? Of course Provo is not quite the sexy European destination that Barcelona is, but we certainly have some charms of our own. What would you include in your list for Provo? Here are some of my favorites (though you'll notice that it's impossible for me to separate Provo from BYU!):

The Y lit up for Homecoming

BYU Sports

The Seasons: How quiet it gets when it snows

 India Palace, one of my favorite restaurants here; the chicken korma is awesome!