Singapore Airlines And Flight SQ006: Managing An Airline Crisis By Joan C. Henderson

Abstract

Flight SQ006, operated by Singapore Airlines (SIA), crashed on 31 October 2000. The accident was the first with fatalities in the 28-year history of the airline, although everyone on board a plane of its wholly owned subsidiary (SilkAir) had died in a crash three years earlier.

More accustomed to favourable reports associated with its successes, the airline now confronted the challenges of managing a fatal accident and adverse publicity potentially damaging to its image and reputation. After dealing with the immediate consequences of the crash in the period up until 6 November, when final casualties were confirmed, there was an opportunity for the company in general and the Public Affairs Department in particular to pause and review the situation.

Teaching Objectives

• To demonstrate some of the strengths and weaknesses of SIA's management of the crisis and the effect of the earlier experience of the crash of a subsidiary company plane.
  
  
• To highlight the role of communication in crisis management.
  
  
• To illustrate the vulnerability of the airline business to crisis and the nature and evolution of such crises.

Issues: Media Communication, Crisis Management, Organisational Learning

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