The Ryanair strike shows how badly companies handle a crisis

Some companies excel at making a bad situation worse, while others prove more talented at managing a crisis

The tourism and travel industry has had a difficult time over the past few years, with bad weather, industrial action and terror attacks creating unprecedented levels of chaos and delay.

However, at times of rising consumer awareness and customer complaints, it is interesting to observe however that some companies still excel at making a bad situation worse, while others prove more talented at managing a crisis.

Ryanair strikes

As if months of record flight delays and cancellations had not been enough, travellers this week faced yet more disruption when Ryanair had to cancel 250 flights today after pilots and cabin crew in various European countries went on strike.

While the plans of holidaymakers and business opportunities may be thwarted as a result, there is always someone who manages to capitalise on someone else’s crisis: in this case, German bus-sharing company Flixbus, which has announced it will be giving away free tickets to travellers affected by the strike.

This is just the latest move by the long-distance bus group as part of its aggressive growth strategy of recent years, which has seen the startup take on major rivals such as Megabus in the UK and Greyhound in the US.

Volcanic ash

The eruptions of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland caused enormous disruption to air travel across western and northern Europe over six-and-a-half days in April 2010. Some companies were better at responding to the chaos than others: The budget airline Ryanair initially refused to compensate passengers that had their flights cancelled, until the EU’s top court ruled they had the duty to do so.

The week-long flight ban across Europe cost airlines like British Airways between £15m and £20m a day. Yet the low-cost airline easyJet, who estimated costs of £5m a while its flights were grounded, managed to operate rescue flights to hotspots at their own expense in order to look after stranded travellers.

Travel agent Sunshine Travel scored points but made significant losses for being the first to offer customers a 100 per cent refund after the eruption.

Vodafone saw a fine product placement opportunity and installed web cams that captured the eruption, generating images that dominated the global news agenda for days.

Licence loss

When Uber failed to react after a series of complaints were made about safety issues, sexual harassment and working conditions, Transport for London revoked the global car-sharing company’s license in September 2017, labelling Uber a not “fit and proper” private car hire operator. The blow was only the latest of many after years of a continuously worsening image crisis that Uber was not able to handle sufficiently. And even after this ruling the company struggled to strike a professional and conciliatory tone, stating that the decision would “show the world that, far from being open, London is closed to innovative companies”.

The ride-hailing app has since had its licence restored, but London Mayor Sadiq Khan has said the company “will now have to work very hard to prove it has truly changed”.