MAS brand faces tough challenge: expert

MAS brand faces tough challenge: expert
By admin


Malaysia Airlines must act swiftly to minimise damage to its brand following the MH370 tragedy, an expert has warned, as a number of operators revealed sales of Malaysia product are already showing signs of a downturn.

Alan King, managing director of brand strategy firm Clear, told Travel Today that the longer uncertainty persists over what caused the flight to crash in the southern Indian Ocean, the more damaging it will be for the MAS brand.

“It’s so high profile. This has made front and centre headlines for two to three weeks now,” he said. “It’s really taken a brand that was unblemished to having a really big blemish which is a huge problem for them.”

While the 2009 Air France tragedy was attributed to a technical issue – when the aircraft went down in the Atlantic – the possibility that a “deliberate” human act lies at the heart of the MH370 disaster is far more problematic.

“Coupled with all of these question marks around the safety and integrity of the pilots, you’ve got the families of passengers themselves getting very upset in press conferences and feeling like they’re not being heard,” King said.

“All businesses, particularly airlines, are people businesses and you want to feel like you’re being taken care of.”

The evident distress of the families and the airline’s “lack of transparency” give the impression that the airline is not handling the situation as well as it could, according to King, who stressed MAS must act swiftly to stop this further damaging its brand.

“I’d be taking steps right now to be frequent and transparent in communication. Sometimes big airlines, big companies hope the less they say, the less they’ll bring attention to something – but you couldn’t possibly bring more attention to this.

“What Malaysia Airlines has got to do now is take the lead on the airline side of things. It has to reassure people that whatever led to this situation happening, steps have been taken to ensure it never happens again.”

The impact on sales will be determined by how long the uncertainty drags on, King predicted.

“That cloud is going to hang over Malaysia Airlines for as long as people don’t know what happened. If you don’t know what happened what’s to say it won’t happen again?

“There are always going to be people that are going to chase price, but there’s a huge chunk of people who are quite nervous flyers, probably about half of the population, and those are the people who are going to say 'I’m not going to fly Malaysia Airlines'.”

His comments come as the Independent Travel Group confirmed it has already seen the impact on sales.

“We have seen a softening in bookings, as would be expected with any carrier unfortunate enough to be faced with such a unique incident,” executive general manager Ari Magoutis told Travel Today.

Hotel metasearch site Trivago last week reported an 18% decline in interest in travel to Malaysia since news of MH370’s disappearance broke on March 8.

The site also reported a decline of 9% in bookings to Vietnam which it connected with the MH370 incident.

“These results are indicating that travellers seem hesitant to head to areas close to where they have been told the flight went missing,” a Trivago spokesperson said.

However, Malaysia Airlines itself insisted that sales are tracking solidly.

“It has had minimal impact on sales. In general the confidence are positive about MAS's reputation,” it said.

“Sales have picked up again to normal trend. Traditionally it's a lean season now. We do not foresee a significant decline in sales moving forward.”

Tourism Malaysia echoed the sentiment.

“Our industry partners are reporting that Australians are continuing to book their travel to Malaysia as normal and that there has been no change in booking behaviour at this point,” it said in a statement. 

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