I have been watching with great interest the Jet Airways saga and, being a frequent flier with the airline, I feel ’sad’ to see the reputation of India’s one time favourite airline take such a beating!

It started with the ill fated buy of Sahara that gave them bad press. Then the fiasco of summarily sacking staff en masse, which played out in the national media and ended with a late night announcement on television by the Chairman taking his children back into the airline. And now the ‘mass sick leave’ taken by their pilots stranding 13,000 passengers across the country. Triggered by the dismissal of three pilots, this is once again grabbing headlines, ‘breaking news’ across the national media, fuelling talk shows and studio discussions. Visuals of stranded passengers crying and cursing the airline are running across the channels.

Add to all of this the impact of the financial crisis and rising ATF costs that has led to the return of leased aircraft and delayed deliveries of new planes ordered by them. Their stock has certainly been taking a beating.

They say, when it rains, it pours. However, the repeated crises they have faced somehow seem to be of their own making. A result of bad judgement and lack of coherent execution of a strategy clearly communicated to their stakeholders.

It almost seems that they are running an airline from the seat of their pants and dealing with issues as they emerge - and that too under the glare of media, print, TV and Online!

It is unfortunate that the airline that re-defined our flying experience and made us want to fly should be taking such a beating to their reputation because of their management skills.

The instinctive reaction is to say, perhaps they ought to be communicating more and proactively to help people understand what is happening and what they are doing about it. But, as Harold Burson says, “Good PR cannot fix bad management.”

It’s time to show the true calibre of the management team and create the differentiation in these challenging times. It’s time to re-define its management image as they did with the way we fly!

Perhaps, it’s time to re-brand the management team instead of the airline!

A lot of credit goes to Mr. Goyal for growing the airline industry in India and as his well wisher, I would love to see him seize this moment, be the leader that he is and take his airline to even greater heights.

Think it over, Mr. Goyal, and Just Do It.

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Tags: airline industry in india, aviation in india, Corporate Reputation, corporate strategy of jet airways, jet airways, jet airways strike