US Airways fails web crisis communications

For
all the heroics of pilot Chesley Sullenberger and the happy ending
for all the survivors of the ill-fated US Airways flight that
splashed-down in the Hudson, the parent corporation directing that
flight does not earn a similar fate. Though US Airways did not
completely fail the crisis, they did fail at web crisis
communications.

Within
moments of the plane landing in the Hudson, ferries began to redirect
their sterns to the partially submerged wing tips of the big jet
airliner; the only quicker response was the one by users of Twitter.
The tweets were ringing through the Twitter website and PDAs across
the planet faster than CNN could break the story. A simple lesson,
really: the Web has become the ultimate quick response system in
times of crisis. Though this lesson has been re-learned many times
(the bombings on Mumbai are just one of countless examples), US
Airways still had not learned the lesson.

Amongst
the flurry of tweets were those from myself, who working from the
greatest of distances, my building in Vancouver, was able to
communicate more about the story than the airline itself. And while
the Internet continues to prove itself amongst the fastest of
communications channels, US Airways still did not have a response or
a message on their website two hours after their accident. I was
watching