Glitches happen.
Anything made by human hands (i.e. computers) is prone to problems. If a
solution can't be made available for the time being, the next best thing will
be to mitigate the effects. For example, if you're hungry but it's not yet time
for lunch, water can fill your stomach for the time being.
This was a hard lesson
American Airlines learned in April, 2013 after a glitch in their reservation
system dropped hundreds of flights from its database. It was a nationwide
crisis that crippled the airliner, which was already suffering from a negative
reputation, particularly from problems in its MD-80 aircraft fleet several
years ago.
American's reputation
got worse with how the airliner handled the glitch. As it turned out, many news
outlets reported that the company formally announced the crash to the public
via social media an hour before grounding the entire fleet. Flights already in
the air continued their travel unhindered, but those still in the ground were
barred from taking off, leaving passengers irate.
American failed to
inform its crew of the outage, given that their employees in airports all over
the U.S. hardly knew what was going on. It's a lesson on how concrete
communication can mitigate, if not prevent, a PR disaster-inducing crisis.
Currently, American is hard at work with rebuilding its reputation now that it
has merged with US Airways.
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