Lessons in disruption management from the#LionAirDelay incident

Last week, Indonesia’s Lion Air experienced a paralysis of its network, which caused flights throughout its domestic and international networks to be severely delayed. It all (apparently) began with a number of aircraft-on-ground (AOG) incidents leading to cascading delays operating in-and-out of its Jakarta hub.

Incidentally, the delays began a day before Chinese New Year (18 February), with the situation escalating progressively to a highpoint on the following day, and pressure plateauing on Saturday — three days later — when Lion Air officially ceased all scheduled flight operations from 5pm Jakarta time. This decision allowed the airline to assign available aircraft to fulfil the remaining backlog of flights.

In-between, of course, there was the onslaught of passengers falling-out with the airline (or vice-versa, depending on how you see it). While flight delays may be commonplace at Lion Air, this particular incident was not of the typical kind…

News finally breaks on Twitter (in English)…

At some time just after 10pm Jakarta local time on 19 February, nearly 24 hours after the situation all slowly began, aviation consultant Gerry Soejatman — who is also based in Jakarta — posted the following on Twitter:

While the keywords “meltdown” and “riot” may seem exaggerative, Gerry’s commentary on aviation incidents, such as the Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia accidents during 2014, are known to be concise and non-speculative. There had been no significant mention of the subject matter on Twitter until this point, as virtually all prior mentions were in Bahasa, the primary dialect used in Indonesia.

In other words, there was no significant amplification of this piece of news until a translated description of events were provided — and more importantly, by a reputable spokesperson in the industry.

This was also when the hashtag #LionAirDelay began to trend on Twitter.

Out of control

A quick look-up of the #LionAirDelay hashtag on Twitter will easily bring up a long list of tweets, again virtually all in Bahasa, containing comments, rants, and even memes — all making reference to Lion Air’s utter incompetence in its handling of the overall situation.

Like most travel disruption experiences, the inability of an airline to move passengers along their way, in a timely manner, is what fuels frustrations. Furthermore, a lack of good communications can greatly exacerbate a deteriorating situation, possibly to a point that can bring the worst out of people.

According to some of Gerry’s tweets:

• The excessive amount of passengers led to overcrowding, and the moving of AirAsia flights to another terminal building temporarily.
• Lion Air passengers began blocking X-ray machines, preventing those travelling on other airlines from taking their flights.
• Lion Air ground staff were forced to leave their posts after angry passengers went on a rampage, causing physical damage at check-in counters, and even breaking of windows.
• Passenger protests moved to the aircraft apron, disrupting flights and other airport operations via sit-ins — which subsequently resulted in the local military moving in.

While Gerry may not have been on-site at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK), where all this took place, the connectivity of the Internet allowed for those actually present to share their experiences — whether it be on instant messaging services (such as BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), LINE and WhatsApp), social media (namely Facebook and Twitter), or even forums specialising in commercial aviation (IndoFlyer and Airliners.net, for example).

Through a mix of the above methods, Gerry was able to gather up the most-relevant bits of information and media from his sources, and re-post these on Twitter — in English.

As demonstrated, the importance of selecting a universally-recognised language for message delivery cannot be underestimated — or any kind of message delivery, especially in the case of Lion Air…

Lion Air: Social media?

To date, Lion Air has never officially announced any form of social media participation. But…

Googling “Lion Air Twitter” came up with three different Twitter accounts, all with seemingly-legitimate handles:

• @OfficialLionAir: 638 tweets 2,446 followers, last updated 26 February 2015.
• @LionAirID: 423 tweets, 53,819 followers, last updated 01 October 2014.
• @LionAirIndo: 287 tweets, 11,416 followers, last updated 10 July 2014.

Were any of these official? Judging by the rate of tweets and their content, the @OfficialLionAir account was most probable. During the disruption period, several related tweets were posted, including two apologies and several providing general informational updates. But considering the severity of the disruption, the level of activity was disappointingly low.

On 26 February, the Twitter account had disappeared, most likely deleted by its owner.

Prior to the deletion, a final tweet was posted:

“Tweeps dalam penerbangan kalian pilih mana? Kena delay atau ngga pernah sampai ☺ selamat malam. Salam #LIONAIR ”

…which translate to:

“Tweeps, when it comes to flying which one do you choose? Being delayed or never to arrive at all? Good night. #LIONAIR”

A disgruntled employee? Or, maybe, just not-so-official a Twitter account after all?

Locating Lion Air’s Facebook account proved even more difficult. Googling:

• “Lion Air Facebook” — first search result linked to a ‘Lion Air’ community page last updated in July 2009 (Bahasa content, 77,319 likes).
• “Lion Group Facebook” — fourth search result linked to a ‘Lion Group’ company page, last updated in April 2014 (English content, 50 likes).
• “Lion Group Indonesia Facebook” — second search result linked to a ‘Lion Group Indonesia’ company page, last updated on 26 February 2015 (Bahasa content, 8,256 likes).

All three Facebook pages contained official Lion Air content — but only the last one remained up-to-date and had relevant informational posts throughout the time of the disruption. At no time did the airline engage with any of the commenters, which was not surprising given the reality of the disruption situation.

The difficulty in locating the correct Facebook page, however, was very troubling.

Selective ignorance is not an excuse

Ambiguity is Lion Air’s biggest enemy on social media. Unless a person knows exactly how and what to look for, efforts towards correct identifying an official account can prove futile — as previously demonstrated.

What was more interesting is how seemingly juxtaposed their social media efforts have become, especially when Lion Air pointed out on one of their official Facebook pages how the @OfficialLionAir Twitter account is not actually official.

Besides multiple Facebook pages being a flaw in social media strategy, allowing foreign forces to command the voice of your organisation’s brand is far worser. That last tweet posted on the now-deleted @OfficialLionAir account, sarcasm or not, is the perfect example of the damage 140 keystrokes can possibly do to a brand.

Therefore, it is also important to know how to protect a brand on social media, especially more so in places where its presence clearly should not be.

Doing things better

However, in addition to the various disruption management techniques (or lack of) exercised during this incident, the following social media centric options could help towards minimising fallout, or even complement efforts in alleviating a developing situation:

• Complement ground agent observations with relevant keyword and hashtag searches. Through posts made by people involved, it paints a clearer picture of the current situation and offer greater insight towards devising possible solutions and contingency plans. Sifting through all the irrelevant posts can pose as a challenge in such times of crises (as there are bound to be people taking shots of the personal nature!) A simple search for tweets containing “@OfficialLionAir” brings up countless posts.
• At no time was the #LionAirDelay hashtag referred to. Literally, it may possess negative connotations, resulting in a possible knee-jerk response of “avoid at all costs”. However, on Twitter, hashtags are also subject placeholders or reference points people use to search for relevant tweets. #LionAirDelay means just that — there is no shame in embracing the truth and showing acceptance.
• Directly engaging selected comments and enquiries can assist with alleviating possible situations. In such times, it can be difficult to respond to every single (relevant) post. Improvise by replying to a group of posts on a similar topic or question, timely, at one hit, and focusing on the ones which take precedence and/or priority in importance. Demonstrating a willingness to help and assist can create an attitude of greater understanding — or even a forgiving one — when a situation turns sour.
• If an enquiry warrants further discussion, move it to a non-public channel and maintain an appropriate level of dialogue — whether it is social media (Facebook messaging, Twitter DM), online (e-mail, instant messaging), or even a phone call (should it be necessary). In most cases, taking it one further step can lead to a solution far more quickly, rather than just bouncing replies between one another, which can look bad if a case is not handled appropriately.

The scene at Soekarno-Hatta could have been far less volatile and physically resource-straining if Lion Air chose to use social media more proactively. For example, if information was (more frequently) shared about the status of various flights, this would allow passengers to make an informed decision on whether or not to go to the airport. In turn, it lessens the burden on those front-line personnel, and allowing for better allocation of resources in a disruption situation.

But some things may never change

The news of Lion Air’s massive delays throughout its network did not even make international headlines, unlike how weather-related disruptions in Europe and the U.S. are considered quite major. Of course, this has much to do with the importance of a single airline’s disruption which has virtually nil effect on travellers not native to the country of Indonesia.

In other words, the only people who has to deal with #LionAirDelay are those who fly with Lion Air on a routine basis, mostly knowing what to expect.

Firdaus Hashim, air transport reporter for Flightglobal, makes this very concise remark:

While this may read as snark, Rusdi Kirana’s (Chairman of Lion Group) comment is, in fact, quite accurate in the sense that Lion Air’s extensive network, geographically, throughout Indonesia is an important competitive advantage over the other airlines. Hence, even with a disruption of such magnitude, the possible damage that can be done to the brand and its reputation will be minimal, at best.

Ironically, thanks to the consistently-poorer passenger experience from Lion Air, the majority of the victims of this disruption will fly with this airline again sometime in the future — not because they do not have a choice, but because it is probably the only way to fly.

With that said, the opportunity of implementing the aforementioned measures to improve communications with passengers, and their service experience with the airline, is still on the table. In an age where people are becoming far more connected than ever before, the odds are building against any organisation choosing to turn a blind eye to eventuality.

Kinny tweets aviation, social media and technology on Twitter.