Having your flying operation grounded is the sort of challenge you hope never comes your way when you work for an airline. But when my phone rang loudly at 2am on Friday 21 March with news of a major issue at Heathrow Airport, that’s exactly the position we at British Airways found ourselves in.

A huge fire at a nearby electrical substation had cut the power supply to Heathrow’s critical operational systems, thwarting the airport’s ability to depart and accept incoming flights. The scale of the disruption that would follow was unprecedented and the communications challenges incredibly complex.

As the situation unfolded in those very early hours, we had planes heading for London from all around the world that were having to reroute into other UK and nearby European airports. So our immediate priority as communicators was to give customers and colleagues as clear a picture as possible about what was going on in London, even if at that stage we were unable to offer much by way of detail and reassurance.

Our 24/7 global operations team – the nerve centre for our entire operation – has direct messaging capability with cabin crew teams in the air, so this was a vital tool for getting information to crews to help with onboard announcements, in addition to customer emails and texts. We knew that media would very quickly connect the substation fire to Heathrow Airport and that, as the biggest carrier at the airport, we would face significant questions about the impact on our customers.

In line with our crisis communications playbook, the team issued a holding media statement within 40 minutes of being informed of the incident and a further statement with more information shortly after. That really bought us a little time to establish through our operational crisis management structure a more detailed picture on the scale and impact of the issue.

A third of our fleet was out of position

It quickly became clear that even if power at Heathrow was restored immediately, our business would face significant challenges in the days that followed. This was because we had customers, flight and cabin crew colleagues, and planes at locations where we weren’t planning on them to be, with over a third of our fleet out of position due to enforced diversions and cancellations.

And this presented an additional challenge in that our crews are only legally allowed to operate for a certain number of hours over any given period of time. So that meant we had the logistical issue of getting new crews out to operate those aircraft.

As a comms leadership team we took the decision very early on to film a video with our CEO that had a couple of simple objectives. We wanted to be clear that the fallout from the outage would likely impact BA for some days to come and the scale of the challenge we were facing. We also wanted to advise customers of the travel options they had available to them and, crucially, thank the thousands of colleagues from across the business who were supporting customers in response to the incident. 

Social listening kept our fingers on the pulse 

We used social listening tools to get under the skin of what people were saying about the outage so we could address it in our video messaging. The video was a critical part of our internal and external communications response as it helped to define our own narrative rather than have it shaped for us by others. The team distributed the video to media along with a transcript and it led national TV news channel coverage, as well as featuring prominently in print and online coverage over the subsequent 24 hours as well as attracting more than 500,000 views through our own channels.

We kept a regular dialogue with key aviation journalists throughout the day of the outage and in the days that followed, providing them with rolling updates on the impact on the BA operation.

With thousands of colleagues due to report for work on the day of the outage, speed and clarity of communication was critical. That’s where our internal communication channels really helped us. We used digital and analogue channels to get messages out fast – through email broadcasts, intranet updates, targeted content and sharing easy-to-follow Q&As to help our teams on the ground know what to do next.

Cutting through the noise

Our intranet platform in particular helped us to cut through the noise, keep our people informed and give them confidence at a time when a lot was uncertain. 

Content produced by our social media team focused on factual and regular updates and reached almost 11 million people across our channels. And we worked closely with teams internally to deliver website updates and customer comms, as well as ensuring any marketing activity was appropriate, to ensure we didn’t inadvertently damage our brand by advertising flights at a time when we weren’t able to operate.

The phenomenal efforts of our operational colleagues and the significant investment we’ve made in improving our business meant that the day after the outage, we were able to operate more than 90 per cent of our planned schedule. This rose to 100 per cent on the following day.

As a communications leadership team, we were proud of the small part we played in our corporate response and, of course, there are always learnings. 

From the playbook

Trust and drill your crisis preparedness

Every business should have a corporate crisis comms plan that acts as the guide rail for any major reputational issue. Regularly reviewing and familiarising yourself with its content gives confidence to internal stakeholders when in the grip of a crisis.

Be quick, clear, honest and transparent

Saying something, however limited, is always better than saying nothing when you’re in the early throes of a crisis. You have to own your own part in a developing story otherwise others will do it for you.

Monitor what people are saying about you and be agile enough to respond

Setting up social media listening searches allowed us to keep a close eye on what was being said about our brand. This meant we could address prevailing issues that were gathering pace in future messaging and through customer-specific channels.

Always have an eye on the team

A crisis is rarely short-lived, so allocate roles and responsibilities on a shift basis to avoid team burnout. It’s a marathon, not a sprint!

Shaun Jepson is head of corporate communications & public affairs at British Airways

Photos: aleksandarvelasevic/Teamjackson/Martin Barraud/SOPA Images/Getty Images