OPINION: Airlines must lead the way now on coronavirus

Southwest CEO Gary Kelly and other industry executives have likened the impact of COVID-19 on travel demand to be similar to that of 9/11; the comparison was painful for all of us who worked in the industry on that awful day. 

But 9/11 and the coronavirus are very different triggers.  In 2001, we knew that terrorists had hijacked four airliners and used them as weapons; although many feared that there might be more attacks, the quiet that followed was reassuring. 

At American Airlines, where I became head of advertising three weeks after 9/11, the first thing we did was opinion research, and one question stood out: how many people were so fearful that they wouldn’t fly, and that emotion would drive behavior? Fortunately, that number was never above about 4%. 

The fear from and reaction to COVID-19 is very different.  Unlike al Qaeda, the “bad guy” is invisible, insidious.  As always, the mass media has been long on drama and short on science in helping people make sense of the actual risk.  Social media, which didn’t exist in 2001, amplifies the frenzy.  President Trump tries to reassure the traveling public, “Where these people are flying, it’s safe to fly, and large portions of the world it's very safe to fly . . .”  But trust in elected officials in general, and the president specifically, has eroded greatly since 9/11.

The airline industry needs to confront the virus head-on.  Airlines for America’s website AirlinesTakeAction, and the pages on AA.com and other carriers are just a small start.  They are not enough.  Absent credible and reliable reassurances from Washington or elsewhere, our industry needs to explain the tiny risk, clearly and with just a few datapoints that we keep repeating.   

But if we are honest, we must also acknowledge that we airline people lack credibility.  The criticism is undeserved, but it exists.  So we must combine our own messaging with those of unimpeachable proxies.  Let’s hire prominent doctors, MIT statisticians, and maybe even movie stars (Clint Eastwood!) to explain that you’re not going to get sick when you fly, nor when you reach your destination. 

The proxies need to quantify the tiny risk in ways that people easily understand.  In recent days, I’ve been telling people that since Jan.1, more than 85,000 people have died worldwide from seasonal flu (the kind some us get every year), but only about 3,500 from COVID-19.  We don’t stop flying when winter flu season arrives, do we?

Finally, best practice in crisis management tells us that in addition to facts and data, we need to use positive emotion to persuade people to fly.  After 9/11 at American Airlines, we developed powerful, touching advertising that reminded the public of the joy of getting together with friends and family.

In the opening sentences of his inauguration speech in 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt memorably said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”  That sounds a lot like today.

We need to act now, because fear is wrecking our business. 

Rob Britton is a former executive at American Airlines. He is an adjunct professor of marketing at the Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and principal at AirLearn.