Southwest Airlines - How Poor Judgement can Lead to Bad PR

MSNBC reports that a passenger in a Southwest flight was taken off a plane for wearing a "skimpy" outfit. This passenger was then allowed on after somehow making the outfit look less skimpy, and was afterwards allowed on board a plane for the return trip wearing the same outfit. Ironically on the return trip the outfit elicited compliments from the flight attendants.

I am not surprised that a misguided, overzealous or otherwise dyspeptic employee could cause a minor PR issue for Southwest by trying to enforce some vague sartorial standards, that is the exception that is to be expected from any business; what surprises me is that Southwest did not even consider an apology and that it is hiding under the nebulous concept of being a "family-oriented" airline.

We can only guess that Southwest figures that it gets more business from "families" than from scantily clad young women and has chosen to favor the former at the expense of the latter.

This type of business maths reminds me of the infamous "Pinto memo": in 1968 the Ford Motor company decided to launch the fantastically igneous Ford Pinto knowing that it would burst into flames in rear end collisions due to the configuration of its back end as well as the location of its fuel tank. Once the car proved a monumental health threat, an internal memo from Ford surfaced in which it became clear that Ford was aware of the car's shortcomings, and had looked into mitigating designs. As it turned out, the memo included some innovative business maths: it indicated that the cost of producing a safe car would be around $121 million whereas the cost of settling lawsuits from exploding cars would be around $50 million.

Sometimes the logic of maths does not translate well to customer satisfaction or brand image...

Comments

[Suzanne Obermire]

Your Pinto example was much more than poor judgement, don't you agree? I'd simply call it evil to even try to quantify the cost of harming or killing their customers vs. the cost of handling lawsuits resulting from an accident. Shame on Ford!

Now, the Southwest example--yes, that is absolutely a matter of poor judgement. I saw the girl wearing the same outfit she flew in on TV. She looked like any other young, attractive California girl. I believe that Southwest erred in the handling of the situation. And, I think that it has negatively impacted their brand. Yes, Southwest may be a family-oriented airline. But, it is also an airline that tries not to be stuffy, that is fair to all (with their first-come-first-seated philosophy). Even their silly jokes they intersperse in the safety announcements put forth a brand that is trying to be customer-focused and fun.

There's nothing fun about embarrassing a customer, who didn't seem to be violating any dress code I'm aware of.

[Adelino de Almeida]

Yes Suzanne, I agree with you to some extent. The analogy may seem a bit forced but my point is that sometimes companies exaggerate their drive for consistency. In the case of Southwest this was expressed through their lack of reasonable response. It was as if business were focused on the least common denominator and the person in charge of PR could not fully understand the implications of their statement. An alternative would have been to offer an oblique excuse, something to the effect of "we messed up, our employee was overzealous, his excess of zeal comes from our strong focus on serving families, etc." I am not a PR genius but this does not seem to be a particularly difficult exercise.