Commercial airlines that have watched passenger traffic tumble in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks now are grappling with the thorny issue of talking to consumers who are afraid to travel.
Airlines have stuck with their traditional post-disaster routine of pulling advertisements, hunkering down and waiting for the headlines to change. But this time, the advertising blackout won't simply give way to campaigns emphasizing cheap fares, comfortable seats or frequent-flier mileage.
"Safety is now an extraordinarily tricky topic for the airlines," said Michael Taylor, director of travel services for JD Power & Associates, an Agoura Hills-based market research firm. "Arguably, commercial airlines are still the safest form of transportation.
"But airlines are now in a fight for survival; if they don't get the confidence of the flying public back, they won't survive in the long run."
There is no manual for airlines trying to craft appropriate messages to reassure consumers after a disaster of such immensity. Pan Am Flight 103, brought down by a terrorist bomb in 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland, "is probably as close as you can get," said Barbara Beyer, president of Avmark, an Arlington, Va.-based aviation consulting firm.
"How well Pan Am did after that is open to question," Beyer said. "Pan Am didn't communicate all that well. They were very hostile to any sort of hint that it was a failure of security on their part . . . even though the papers were just plastered with accusations of lax security."
The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks came as the airline industry already was reeling from a downturn in business and personal travel. Since then, thousands of airline workers have been laid off and flight schedules have been trimmed.
Congress on Friday passed a $15-billion bailout for the cash-hungry industry.
Airline executives also are pressing lawmakers to turn airport security over to a federal agency. Some observers expect the airline industry to incorporate that government involvement into upcoming advertisements designed to calm consumers.
But Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Radnor, Pa.-based Business Travel Coalition, maintains that consumer confidence won't rise simply because federal officers are staffing security stations. Passengers want evidence that government and airline security forces can show "they've closed the intelligence gap on international terrorism."
