The New CCO Podcast: Linda Rutherford - Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 & Guiding a Brand Through Tragedy

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On April 17, 2018, Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 suffered an engine failure while making a trip from New York to Dallas, resulting in the tragic loss of one of the passengers. Thankfully, due to the heroic actions of the pilot, Tammie Jo Shults, and the crew, the plane successfully made an emergency landing in Philadelphia. 

In the face of tragedy, Tammie Jo and the rest of the Southwest team remained cool, calm, and collected. Ultimately, it was this spirit that drew widespread praise and recognition, even from the White House, for the way in which the situation was handled. 

On this edition of The New CCO, we speak with Linda Rutherford, SVP & CCO of Southwest Airlines, about that fateful day and the ensuing work she and her team did to balance the fun-loving Southwest Airlines brand with the proper respect and reflection the situation demanded. Linda discusses what that day was like for her and the mechanics of the immediate crisis management, Southwest’s strategy in the wake of the tragedy, and more. 

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Speaker 1: ( 00:02 ) Southwest 1380 has an engine fire descending.

Speaker 2: ( 00:05 ) On April 17th, 2018, Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 from New York to Dallas suffered an engine explosion pending Right now.

Speaker 1: ( 00:13 ) Yes, there were single engine descending.

Speaker 3: ( 00:16 ) Could you have the, uh, medical meet us there on the runway as well? We've got, uh, injured passengers.

Speaker 4: ( 00:23 ) Injured passengers. Okay. And are you, is your airplane physically on fire?

Speaker 3: ( 00:28 ) No, it's not on fire, but part of it's missing. They said there was a hole and, and, uh, someone went out.

Speaker 4: ( 00:40 ) Um, I'm sorry. You said there was a And somebody went out 1380. Doesn't matter. We'll work it out.

Speaker 2: ( 00:59 ) The heroic response of the crew, especially the pilot crew, brought the plane safely to the ground. Southwest, SVP and CCO, Linda Rutherford and her team were at the center of the response. Not just handling the media deluge, but steering the company through the crisis, with an eye toward its corporate identity and its values. How does a fun loving brand react authentically to such a serious situation? Linda joins us to recount the decisions that were made and the work that her team did to recognize the tragic loss of life and the remarkable heroism of the crew. I'm Elliot Maraki. This is the new CCO. Tell me exactly what happened that day.

Speaker 5: ( 01:40 ) Well, um, I, I wanna walk you through everything that the company experienced and our people experienced, but just to get us started, we are obviously still at this point in an active investigation with the national transportation. Mm-hmm . So, the, uh, insights that I wanna offer to you today are obviously done respectfully. Um, uh, there was obviously a tragic loss of life and, uh, nothing that I'll be able to get into today would speculate or provide a hypothesis as to the cause of the accident that would obviously be for the National Transportation Safety Board to provide. Understood. Sure. But, um, that said, uh, April 17th, um, 2018, as you mentioned, flight 1380 had boarded, uh, New York LaGuardia and was gonna travel nonstop to Dallas. While in flight, uh, one of the engines experienced, uh, a ca catastrophic engine failure.

Speaker 6: ( 02:36 ) Everybody breathe, relax.

Speaker 7: ( 02:38 ) This morning, newly released video showing the terrifying scene onboard Southwest Flight 1380.

Speaker 5: ( 02:45 ) When it did so, pieces of the aircraft engine flew, flew out of the engine.

Speaker 7: ( 02:50 ) This passenger wearing her oxygen mask recording as a flight attendant desperately tries to calm people down.

Speaker 5: ( 02:59 ) And, uh, some of those pieces actually hit the side of the aircraft, uh, one of which actually pierced the side of the fuselage and created a massive depressurization event,

Speaker 8: ( 03:12 ) Passenger Marty Martinez Facebook Live streaming what he thinks will be his death.

Speaker 9: ( 03:19 ) All of a sudden we hear this loud explosion, and it, it, like, within a span of five seconds, all of the, uh, all of the oxygen masks deployed. And then, uh, just a few seconds later, another explosion happened, and it was a window that just completely exploded,

Speaker 5: ( 03:36 ) Which tragically caused, uh, one of the passengers seated in a window seat, uh, to be partially taken out of the aircraft.

Speaker 9: ( 03:45 ) And, um, as you can imagine, everybody was going crazy and yelling and screaming.

Speaker 5: ( 03:51 ) Um, heroically the crew, as well as several passengers onboard that airplane, um, managed to get, um, Jennifer Rearden back into the airplane, uh, and begin to administer emergency medical treatment. The attendant yelling out the location of the defibrillator,

Speaker 10: ( 04:09 ) The front, uh, cabinet.

Speaker 2: ( 04:14 ) So, I've seen these types of things in movies and TV shows, and it looks very dramatic. But in reality, when something like this happens, do you know what it feels like in the plane? What, what might the passengers been experiencing in that moment?

Speaker 5: ( 04:33 ) It, it really did depend on where you were sitting. Obviously, the closer you were to where the, the hole happened in the aircraft, it sounded much more dramatic, uh, in terms of wind effects. And obviously there was a, a significant pressure change. Um, people who were many rose back might have heard a worrying noise. Um, but regardless, when an aircraft experiences a depressurization event, what'll happen is the oxygen masks will drop. Uh, and obviously the flight crew that's in the cockpit is working to get the aircraft down to an altitude where it would be safe to breathe without the aid of oxygen

Speaker 4: ( 05:09 ) Approach. Southwest 1380, I understand your emergency. Let me know when you want to go in. Yeah, we have a part of the aircraft, so we're gonna need to slow down a bit. Southwest 1380 speed is your discretion. Maintain, uh, at any aptitude above 3000 feet. And you'd let me know when you want to turn base. All right. Down to 3000.

Speaker 5: ( 05:28 ) So, our flight attendants would've been instructing everyone on the use of their oxygen masks, making sure everyone was safely seat belted in their seats, uh, and then obviously, uh, understanding what had happened, um, when the passenger, uh, was, was partially taken from the airplane because of the depressurization event. Could

Speaker 4: ( 05:47 ) You have the, uh, medical meet us there on the runway as well? We've got, uh, injured passengers. Injured passengers. Okay. And are you, is your airplane physically on fire?

Speaker 3: ( 05:58 ) No, it's not on fire, but part of it's missing. They said there was a hole and, and, uh, someone went out.

Speaker 4: ( 06:10 ) Um, I'm sorry. You said there was a hole and somebody went out 1380. It doesn't matter. We'll work it out there. Uh, so the airport's just off your right. Reported in site, please.

Speaker 3: ( 06:22 ) 13.

Speaker 2: ( 06:26 ) When did you first find out what was happening in the air?

Speaker 5: ( 06:29 ) So, on April 17th, I was part of a leadership team that was actually offsite away from our headquarters building, and we were going through some leadership training. Um, we obviously have an emergency notification system, so, uh, if there were to be a a, an emergency with any part of our operation, there is an immediate notification that goes out to a set of individuals to let them know what's going on. So we got a message saying that we'd had an aircraft diverting to Philadelphia, and that it had experienced an engine failure.

Speaker 2: ( 07:00 ) So, and this is on your cell phones, so you're all in the

Speaker 5: ( 07:02 ) Meeting and it's, right, so you're getting texts. And so, uh, we dialed into our network operations center and, and tried to hear, you know, what was going on. And upon hearing the report, we understood how serious, uh, this, this event was.

Speaker 5: ( 07:17 ) Most of the members of that leadership team are also part of our emergency response effort. So we all made our way back to headquarters, uh, at, in Dallas, near Love Field. And then we immediately began, um, reporting to our headquarters emergency command center, what we call the heck. And we have 34 different teams, uh, that are assigned different responsibilities in an emergency response. And so, um, members of the executive team, uh, convened in that room to begin to hear more details and to find out, uh, what we needed to do to enact our emergency plan.

Speaker 2: ( 07:53 ) Is the plane still in the air? You're still getting regular updates about what's happening?

Speaker 5: ( 07:57 ) Right. So that was obviously, you know, a period of 30 minutes or less.

And, uh, in the meantime, we are breaking the meeting that we had offsite, we're returning to headquarters.

Speaker 4: ( 08:06 ) He 1380 turn, uh, just start turning southbound there. There's a southwest 7 3 7 on a four mile final. Be turning southbound, start looking for the airport. It's off to your right and slightly behind you there. And, uh, altitude is your discretion. Use caution for the, uh, downtown area. Me

Speaker 3: ( 08:20 ) Too.

Speaker 5: ( 08:20 ) Uh, by the time we got to headquarters, we, uh, had another call

Speaker 4: ( 08:25 ) For right now. Continuing the arrival, everybody pulled back to 170 Knots America, 5 85, turn left in 360. You expect vectors cross the localizer. This might end up shutting down the airport, so we might have to do

Speaker 5: ( 08:35 ) Sustain plane. Uh, decided to make a, an emergency diversion to the Philadelphia airport,

Speaker 3: ( 08:40 ) Southwest 1380 runway, two seven left clear to land.

Speaker 11: ( 08:44 ) They were having to drop the plane 20,000 feet in five minutes, you know, come to find out. And the pilots, I know how they did it.

Speaker 3: ( 08:55 ) Rachel, when you're able, do you wanna stop wherever you need to sign. Thank you. We're gonna stop right here by the, uh, fire truck. Thanks guys for the help.

Speaker 5: ( 09:07 ) Once the airplane was on the ground, you know, we began, obviously all of the, uh, emergency response efforts that we're, we're trained to enact, but hope we never have to use.

Speaker 5: ( 09:16 ) Uh, emergency responders were obviously on site tending to passengers. Uh, fire department was obviously on the scene. And, um, you know, our Philadelphia, uh, airport employees began working with them to just understand what we needed to do to secure the aircraft and, and, um, begin to, you know, understand and inspect what had happened. Um, we, uh, we first got, you know, Jennifer reared an off, um, the airplane so that the emergency personnel could tend to her, uh, and then began asking others if there were any other injuries or anything else that, um, that the, uh, paramedics needed to take a look at. Um, but sadly, she did not survive.

Speaker 2: ( 10:00 ) You are leading the communications team. When this news comes across, what are some of the first things that you're thinking about?

Speaker 5: ( 10:09 ) Well, as a, as a human being, the first thing you do is you, you race to what is the status of the customers on board and what is the status of our crew? So even in the drive that I was making from the offsite back to headquarters, I was just hoping that

everyone was okay. Um, that ended up not being the case, which of course, you know, takes in a, an emotional toll. Um, and it, it, you know, it's, it's the worst of circumstances to have to, um, talk about somebody dying. And it was, uh, intense. Uh, for sure. The, the only blessing in all of this is that Southwest does take the time and the resources to, to be prepared. We have an emergency response plan, we practice it. Those 34 teams I mentioned, all know what their roles are. They know what their duties are. We, everybody just sort of gets to business to understand, you know, what they need to do to help, uh, Southwest Airlines, uh, navigate what's happened. Um, when we learned that the, uh, passenger was actually from Albuquerque, so the original itinerary was to go from Dallas or from, excuse me, from New York, LaGuardia to Dallas, and then change planes and, and be able to get to Albuquerque. Um, we knew that we needed to decide where we wanted to deploy those resources. So we had a group of people who needed to go to Philadelphia. We had a group of people who needed to go to Albuquerque, and then obviously we were managing the event, um, from our headquarters offices in Dallas.

Speaker 2: ( 11:42 ) Wh what source of communication are you doing in the first 30 minutes or hour?

Speaker 5: ( 11:46 ) So the, the, the social business team is setting up all their monitoring to find out what's happening real time in our corporate listening center. So what are customers saying about this? What are, um, what are the authorities, you know, tweeting about this? Uh, there is a communications team that sets up a media command center to be able to triage the calls and emails that are coming in from members of the news media. Uh, I'm in the headquarters emergency command center, and we are preparing initial statements that need to go out publicly as well as to our employees. We've got 60,000 employees that are sort of spread across a hundred different locations in North America, um, Mexico, Caribbean, central America. And so we wanna make sure that they understand, uh, what we know at that point. So there is a massive communications effort, obviously that gets underway. Uh, it's done in full coordination with the NTSB, um, because when there is an accident, they become the authority that drives all of the information. And so when we want to issue a statement, uh, whether it's inside or outside the organization, we're in very close collaboration to make sure that, um, our statement doesn't do or say anything that violates, uh, the rules of engagement that the NTSB has established.

Speaker 2: ( 13:00 ) So there's a flurry of activity happening absolutely. At headquarters very quickly. Yep. One of the things that I think was most striking here was the composure of the crew, the captain, Tammy Jo Schultz. Tell me a little bit about her and the way that she rose to the occasion in this instance.

Speaker 5: ( 13:18 ) Tammy Jo is a former military, uh, aviator, and, uh, came to Southwest, um, just really excited to join sort of the commercial aviation ranks. Uh, her husband is also a captain for Southwest Airlines. Um, and originally the flight plan was that he was going to fly the flight that day. And, um, they have, uh, a son who had some school activities that Tammy Jo really wanted to be able to get to. So they decided to trade, uh, their flight plan. And

Tammy Jo took that flight, uh, from her husband to fly that day. So, uh, one of my favorite stories is when her husband actually said, well, I'm glad Tammy Jo was flying that particular flight that day. Mm-hmm . I said, you absolutely had the right pilot at, in the right place at the right time. Um, but she's a remarkable woman. Just, uh, very warm, very kind. I'm sure you've heard some of the air traffic control, um, um, conversations that were happening between her and the controllers and her calm demeanor, uh, I think, you know, was certainly the result of, of training, um, as, as well as just a, a ton of experience, um, in being one of, uh, you know, thousands of our very talented pilots.

Speaker 2: ( 14:33 ) CNN described her composure as that, with which one would order a sandwich at a deli. She's polite. Stop

Speaker 3: ( 14:40 ) Wherever you need to. Fine. Thank you. We're gonna by the thanks.

Speaker 2: ( 14:47 ) Clearly somebody who felt comfortable in that situation.

Speaker 5: ( 14:52 ) Absolutely. I mean, uh, obviously well-trained and executed the training that was needed, uh, on that day

Speaker 2: ( 15:02 ) Up in the air,

Speaker 5: ( 15:03 ) Two things were happening. So in the cockpit, what the captain and the first officer were working on was getting the airplane safely on the ground in Philadelphia without completely understanding what the Depressurization event looked like. You know, in the main cabin, uh, what the flight attendants were doing was making sure everyone was safely in their seat, that they were utilizing oxygen if they needed to, um, that we were giving emergency care, uh, to passengers who, um, had been injured, um, and obviously to Mrs. Reardon. But there is a, um, as you can imagine, just sort of a controlled chaos, uh, in that period. Uh, internally, we have a recognition called Winning Spirit, and that is when we are able to recognize the efforts of an employee or a group of employees that show extraordinary leadership. Recently, at the end of August, uh, the flight crew was honored, uh, with a winning Spirit award for their efforts on that day and sense. And, um, the humility that you hear when each of them speaks is also I think, a testimony to their, their gentle, uh, leadership, but obviously, um, powerful leadership as they showed us that day.

Speaker 2: ( 16:17 ) Do her and Sully hang out in some hero pilots club somewhere? ,

Speaker 5: ( 16:21 ) You know, my understanding is that Sully did reach out to Tammy Jo, uh, after, uh, the accident, I think with some words of encouragement. I, I don't know exactly what that conversation was about, but I know that, that, uh, they have, they have made contact .

Speaker 2: ( 16:42 ) So, coming back to you at headquarters, you've got your team together. We're past the first hour or so, the plane has landed safely. What kinds of questions are you asking yourself and asking your team? Or is the organization asking you in terms of how to

respond or where to go next?

Speaker 5: ( 16:58 ) You know, we're obviously, so on the ground, we're cooperating with the authorities and the emergency responders. Uh, we are trying to get a correct assessment as to injuries. Um, we are trying to get confirmation at that point what the severity of Mrs. Rubin's injuries were. Um, and, and, you know, into those hours learning that she, uh, in fact passed away. Um, we are trying to ensure the, the safety of the crew, um, as they were working to try and, you know, close up the aircraft. Um, and, and we needed to get briefings and, and, you know, accounts from them. Um, we were at the same time working with all of the other passengers on that airplane because they had destinations that they needed to get to. So once we got them back into the airport, it was, um, you know, who, who still wanted to fly.

Speaker 5: ( 17:48 ) Um, and we had the majority of the passengers wanted to be booked on another Southwest flight, so we were able to accommodate that to get them home that evening. There were some who decided that they wanted to kind of stay in a hotel room and, um, and, and sort of, uh, calm down and, and, uh, they booked later travel. There were a few who opted, you know, not to fly, uh, Southwest, and we made other arrangements for them, whether it was, you know, rental cars, trains, or accommodations on another airline. It, it was extremely somber, I think, in our headquarters emergency command center when we learned that in fact, uh, Mrs. Rearden's injuries were severe, um, enough that she had, uh, that she'd passed away. And so, you know, that's a, um, an inflection moment, I think. And then the difficulty of, of respectfully then communicating that, uh, being able to confirm what the coroner was telling us.

Speaker 5: ( 18:46 ) Uh, so those were probably some of the most difficult, obviously, communications, um, that I've had to write, uh, and, and edit, uh, in a, in a 26 year career with Southwest Airlines. But it was, um, um, also a really good reminder, uh, throughout the process that we wanted to respect that life. Uh, we wanted to respect that loss, and when we made the decision to deploy some Southwest resources to Albuquerque, uh, it was completely at the service of the family to find out what their needs were, um, to be able to help them understand what had happened and, um, and to be there for them in the, in the week after that, uh, to help with any needs that might come up.

Speaker 2: ( 19:39 ) I can hear in your voice how much you cared and how much your team cared, and the, and the, the care that you took to make sure that everybody was taken care of. And that, I'm sure, came across in the communications that you were putting together. But at the same time, Southwest's persona is very kind of fun loving. I think that's actually part of the, the culture. What challenges did that kind of thing represent in terms of reconciling the persona with an appropriate seriousness of the response?

Speaker 5: ( 20:19 ) That's a, that's a great question. You know, Southwest Airlines does have a bold personality. Um, we are known for, you know, irreverence. We invite our flight attendants to really show their senses of humor and talents onboard the airplane, whether

that's, you know, singing the public safety announcement or, you know, maybe cracking a joke. Um, this in the aftermath of the accident, that was not the time for that. So, uh, we took several measures, uh, which we, um, are, are prepared to do. But for instance, we send a note out to the flight attendants and we tell them that, um, if they normally have a humorous shtick or, um, if they're used to being very playful with passengers, that they just be respectful of what had happened and, uh, and that they not, um, you know, engage in a lot of joke telling. Uh, one of the other big changes that we made is, um, we have a pretty vibrant, uh, corporate logo, which is a tricolor heart. Um, and we made, it's

Speaker 2: ( 21:19 ) On the belly of the planes.

Speaker 5: ( 21:20 ) It's on, it's everywhere. It's on the belly of the airplanes, it's on business cards. It's, it's all over the place. It's in our, you know, branded logo on the ticket counter back walls. I mean, it, it's everywhere. Uh, but in the places where we could, we made a decision to make a change out of respect for what had happened. And, uh, it was something, you know, you don't ever want an accident to happen, but at the same time, if they ever do anywhere in the world, we, we look at that, uh, from a case study perspective to see if there are lessons that can be learned. And, uh, in particular, when Air Asia had their accident, uh, their corporate logo is a very vibrant blood orange. And, uh, they, uh, through, through some corporate decisions, decided to go to sort of a monochromatic black, gray and white logo, and it was outta respect for the loss of life and the fatalities that they had with their accident.

Speaker 5: ( 22:13 ) And we took a look at that and said, you know, that's, that's something that could make a lot of sense for Southwest Airlines, because the corporate hook logo is a heart. Um, because if we were ever in the situation where we had a loss of life that we would want to show respect for that. So we did make the decision, uh, in all of our digital spaces. So on our website, um, on our mobile app, uh, on our Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, uh, digital properties, we did go to a monochromatic blue, uh, logo, and we did that for a period of days. It, it, it varied by channel, but it was a show of respect. Um, it was the first time we'd ever done that. And, um, it just, it felt like the right thing to do because we knew that in the aftermath of this accident, it was not business as usual.

Speaker 2: ( 23:05 ) It must have also been a big logistical challenge was, was this a decision that was made in the aftermath, that something that it was agreed would be an appropriate response? Or was this a plan that you had in advance that you hoped would, you would never have to enact?

Speaker 5: ( 23:21 ) Uh, there had been advance work done on what the logos could look like. Um, there were steps made to understand what the process would look like if we wanted to change that. So today, that decision sits with me as the CCO, as well as our chief marketing officer. We make that decision together, uh, which we did. It felt like the right thing to do. I, I still believe it is the right thing to do. And then we began the process of making those changes, um, in all of our digital properties, the, um, the properties that

market to customers. So our mobile app and our website went back after several days to, um, uh, more of our traditional logo and, and digital brand treatment. The social platforms stayed, uh, in the monochromatic blue a little while longer. That was a judgment call that wasn't necessarily pre-planned, but we sort of woke up each day to take a look at, you know, what was the current situation, what felt like the appropriate thing to do.

Speaker 5: ( 24:20 ) There were obviously still many conversations happening in the digital spaces and saw on social platforms about the accident. It didn't feel right to take those properties back to business as usual as quickly. So, um, we decided to keep the, the, the monochromatic logo there for a bit longer. So, um, in a nutshell, I guess I would say that, you know, we, we planned to use it if we needed it. Um, we followed our process to have the conversation and decided to change the logo. But how those properties returned to more of a business as usual, we really did by gut feel.

Speaker 2: ( 24:56 ) And, and what, when you made those changes, it conveys something about the company's feeling about this. What kind of response did the public seem to give to that sort of gesture?

Speaker 5: ( 25:08 ) Yeah, the, the public got it right away. Uh, as did our employees. Our employees began to pick up the monochromatic heart and made it their profile pick on their Twitter and Facebook posts, uh, also as a show of respect, uh, for the loss of life. So I couldn't have predicted that either. We didn't ask our employees to pick up the, the heart and begin to use it as their logo and their profiles. They just did. Uh, and so we obviously were monitoring and saw that that activity was taking place again. Um, it was completely meant as, uh, a way to show the somberness of the event and a way to show respect, uh, for the passenger who passed away. And I think, um, again, our employees intuitively picked up on that right away. The public sentiment was very understanding of why we were doing it, and we didn't really see, uh, we didn't see any negative backlash, uh, from the decision to do that.

Speaker 12: ( 26:06 ) When you, as a communications person are dealing with the world of Twitter and, and the internet, like, was any part of you afraid that this image, once you put it out there, would like end up in a meme somewhere? Or is there, like any personal fear about making a gesture like this and then dealing with the internet?

Speaker 5: ( 26:30 ) You know, part of our emergency response effort is to do real time listening, uh, with everything that's happening, uh, online, and I, it's probably impossible to harness the internet. Uh, but what we needed to do was to show proper respect for what had happened.

Speaker 2: ( 26:51 ) And your CEO made a statement in the early hours as well. Yeah,

Speaker 5: ( 26:55 ) Yeah. I mentioned that the, you know, we had one team that was setting up the social command center and listening to real time conversations happening there. I mentioned we were, we had a team that was setting up a media command center. Uh, we had another team that was basically setting up a room to be able to do a live news

conference. Uh, and we have a, uh, members of the team that were preparing, uh, facts as we knew them, uh, to be able to share with our CEO so that he could go out with an initial statement.

Speaker 13: ( 27:21 ) It is with great sadness that I confirm there was a passenger fatality on Flight 1380 today. This is a sad day. And on behalf of the entire Southwest family, I want to extend my deepest sympathies for the family and the loved ones of our deceased customer. They are our immediate and primary concern.

Speaker 5: ( 27:41 ) And so we not only conducted that, um, that media press conference, uh, but he also recorded a video, uh, that was predominantly for our employees to help explain what had happened. Uh, but we used it on some of our external channels as well. Um, it was just another way for Gary Kelly as our CEO to be able to express, uh, his sympathies, his condolences, and really set the mood and the tone for how we were all going to respond to this accident.

Speaker 13: ( 28:12 ) I do want to thank and commend our flight crew for their swift action and for safely landing this aircraft. I also want to thank all involved in Philadelphia for their quick professional and compassionate response. This is a sad day, and our hearts go out to the family and loved ones of the deceased customer. Please join us in offering thoughts and prayers and support to all of those affected by today's tragedy.

Speaker 5: ( 28:40 ) One of the things that we can consider is whether we, whether or not we want to give the customers onboard that airplane a gesture of goodwill. The decision was made very quickly. We absolutely wanna do that. Uh, we chose to ga give the customers each $5,000, no strings attached. Uh, we refunded obviously, their round trip air travel. Uh, we did hear from several customers, uh, who when they received the money, actually phoned us and said, thank you. It wasn't necessary. Um, I, I know that you're doing the right thing. I know it was just an accident. We actually had one customer onboard that airplane, send the check back and say, you do not need to pay me any money. I'm a loyal Southwest customer. And, you know, bad things happen sometimes, and, um, I'm returning the check because I don't need it, which was remarkable. Um, but, you know, helping the company make those kinds of decisions to, to lean toward the customer.

Speaker 2: ( 29:38 ) So you said your team is listening to conversations that are happening around this event. What kinds of things were you hearing, and and how did those inform what steps you might take next

Speaker 5: ( 29:51 ) In the, in the days after the accident, uh, what we noticed were a, a, a couple of key, uh, storylines that were emerging. Certainly there was, uh, sympathy for the loss of the passenger and thoughts and prayers going to her family. Uh, there was, um, a desire to understand what might have happened. So what caused the engine failure? And then an interesting one began to emerge, which was an, an, uh, a growing positive sentiment for the actions of the crew, both the pilots and the flight attendants. It was, uh, juiced, if you

will, when the air traffic control, uh, tapes were released, and you could see, you could hear how calm, uh, the, the flight crew was as they were maneuvering that airplane, uh, to Philadelphia. That just began to take on a life of its own in terms of the, uh, remarkable efforts, uh, that the flight crew made to take care of the people on board the airplane, as well as to get that plane safely on the ground.

Speaker 5: ( 30:53 ) Um, it was really interesting in that it, it, it ended up becoming a side story to the actual response to the accident of people who wanted to know Captain Tammy, Joe Schultz's background, and who wanted to know, you know, what was the story of the flight attendants? Um, they made a decision as a, as a group, the five of them, um, to really, uh, decide if they were going to do media interviews together, which I thought was admirable. So no one was looking to be a star. Uh, we certainly were not going to push them to do anything that they didn't want to do, uh, because they too needed to process what had happened. Um, and we also needed to be very respectful, uh, of the investigative process. So we weren't seeking to do a national media tour of sorts, but we did wanna be responsive.

Speaker 14: ( 31:48 ) Wonder folks, enjoy yourselves. Come on. Hello. Some incredible people behind me. I want to just say that I'm honored to have the heroic crew and passengers of Southwest Flight 1380 at the White House today. I also want to thank,

Speaker 5: ( 32:13 ) They, we had a number of different opportunities for them to look at. We helped them vet those opportunities. Um, they asked for some, uh, training, you know, to be able to, uh, handle the media. Well. We provided that training to them. Um, but we, we were very much in sort of a support mode to be able to help them tell the story in the way that felt the most comfortable for them.

Speaker 14: ( 32:35 ) I want to just thank you folks. Fantastic job. That's really, really fantastic. You're a little bit nervous up there, not at, don't, you knew who was plowing the plant, so you had no problem, right? , that's a fantastic job, really. They said you were calm and strong and cool. Thank you very much. Thank you, captain sho. I especially want to commend you for your lifesaving actions. It's, uh, everybody's talking about it. They're still talking about it. They'll be talking about it for a long time. I understand you are one of the first women ever to fly tactical fighter aircraft in the United States Navy. You drew from years of training and safety, and you knew how to land that plane. We salute you and every member of this group. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2: ( 33:24 ) So you're thinking about the near term, certainly taking care of the passengers and making sure the response communicates the appropriate respect, but that the correct actions are being taken. But in the longer term, are you thinking also about reputation and brand loyalty and things like that?

Speaker 5: ( 33:43 ) Well, we, we always wanna do the right thing. And while we had to, uh, understand and respect what was happening in the aftermath of the accident, we also had an airline to run every day. So even after that accident, you, the next morning, there were

4,000 flights that happened for Southwest Airlines. Uh, the website was selling tickets and checking people in. All of our airports were accepting passengers and processing passengers. So we really had to strike the balance between keeping the business running, responding to this accident, and then making sure that there wasn't anything that was upcoming in our corporate voice that would be seen as inappropriate. Um, we were a few weeks away at the time of the accident, about a month from our annual shareholders meeting. So we had conversations about making sure that we would strike the appropriate tone, uh, for our shareholders meeting, and knowing that we would get questions as to the status, uh, of the investigation and being ready for that.

Speaker 5: ( 34:47 ) So, um, you know, in, in the name of the brand, in the name of reputation, we wanted to make sure that we were pacing things as we got back to, uh, what I would call the normal, uh, of, of everyday business. And that we were, um, paying attention to what the needs of our various stakeholders were. So, you know, the, the media had one set of needs. People having conversations in the social space had one set of needs our employees needed to understand and process this for themselves and heal. Um, you know, our corporate executives, uh, who were part of the response effort needed time to sort of process what had happened and be able to turn and, and, and pivot back to running the business. Um, all of our various, uh, revenue generating efforts needed to make sure that, that we were pacing those in the right way. Uh, we went, uh, essentially dark, uh, for a few weeks after the accident in terms of all of our marketing and advertising. So obviously when you're not marketing or advertising the brand, you can see, you know, a, a, a revenue dip from that. When we decided we wanted to put paid advertising back in digital spaces and on television, then we had to decide, well, what should that message be? You couldn't necessarily take something off the shelf that you had been using. It might not be the right tone, it might not be the right voice.

Speaker 2: ( 36:16 ) What kind of adjustments did you make in order to make it more appropriate?

Speaker 5: ( 36:19 ) Well, for example, I, you know, the Southwest personality, as we've been talking about, is sort of big and bold. One of our advertising properties is a series of advertising called Wanna Getaway. And so it uses humor as reasons why you might want to get away from that moment that you're in and go fly on Southwest Airlines. That didn't feel appropriate in the days and weeks after the accident. So the marketing and advertising team had to sort of reconstruct what a marketing message could look like, uh, without the use of humor for a little while, as an example,

Speaker 15: ( 36:51 ) We're not your average airline and we wouldn't have it any other way. We do everything

Speaker 5: ( 36:57 ) Different. Uh, we opted, as we always do, to use the voice of our employees, uh, and, and really spoke to what kind of service we would provide you when you, you know, reward us with your business.

Speaker 15: ( 37:07 ) Check two bags, you, you over 130 million of you chose to fly Southwest last year. That's

Speaker 2: ( 37:14 ) What, so it sounds like you were involved in helping the airline make some tough decisions in the near term that may have a negative financial consequence, but that you believed and the company's values made clear were the right thing to do.

Speaker 5: ( 37:30 ) It, it, I would tell you this is absolutely a team effort. So, uh, many brains are better than one. I firmly believe that. And this is where, you know, revenue and marketing and communications and reputation and emergency response and finance all came together to make the best decision that we could, you know, at that point in time. And we certainly recognized that it was not gonna be ideal from a revenue situation, but that we wanted to make sure that, you know, that we preserved, um, the, the brand as best we could in the aftermath of such a horrible accident. And I think, uh, looking back that we did, uh, a pretty good job.

Speaker 2: ( 38:20 ) So we're sitting here together a few months on from this event just a few weeks ago, there was an article in Inc. Where the reporter was doing an evaluation of what's happened in the months since and makes the point that there's a brand halo around the company that maybe helped it come through this sort of a situation better than another company or airline might have. What do you think the reporter meant by that?

Speaker 5: ( 38:47 ) I do think that Southwest has built a reputation for doing the right thing. I think we see that in our, um, on, in our customer policies. You know, we don't nickel and dime, you know, you don't charge for check bags, we don't charge change fees. So I think in our everyday business, we just wanna do the right thing for our customers. I think for our employees, we wanna create a stable, healthy work environment. You know, we, we, we don't, we've never laid anybody off. Uh, and so we want our employees to know that it's a safe place to come to work and to do your best work. I think that over time those things build a reputation for a company like Southwest that, you know, bad things may happen, but there is a benefit of the doubt that Southwest will do. Its best in the response to that bad thing. And I think that's what the Ink reporter was getting to, and making the, and drawing the conclusion that if a company is set up like that, that they can recover perhaps more quickly than a company that doesn't have that benefit of the doubt that they can see a rebound in their business more quickly. That they can get their employees or their workforce through the, the change and, um, grieving process, uh, more quickly that you can see the potential for stock price to recover. I think that's what the Ink reporter was getting to.

Speaker 2: ( 40:13 ) So looking back on it yourself, what do you think are some of the big lessons here for somebody who's in the CCO role in a circumstance like this?

Speaker 5: ( 40:27 ) A couple of things. Uh, first is, you know, this, this response effort wasn't just a one day effort, it was several weeks. And I think we have to be very careful that we

don't wear people out with their assignments while they're trying to respond. So I think we have to be very mindful of what those resources look like, and if they need a rest, or if we have to substitute somebody else in that, we're built to do that. I also think that this was, uh, a tragic accident with one loss of life, and I know the extraordinary resources we put toward that. So heaven forbid in the future there were to ever be an accident that resulted in more loss of life. I wanna make sure that our plan is set up that we can double, triple, or even quadruple the resources that we might need to help care for our employees and the customers, uh, that might be impacted by that kind of an accident. And making sure that we're really thinking about the resources it would take to do that in the right way. And when I say the right way, I mean in a timely manner, in a compassionate manner.

Speaker 2: ( 41:39 ) Is there something you might've done differently if you had it to do over again?

Speaker 5: ( 41:46 ) It has to do with our internal staffing. It's, it's how we, we couldn't get people to go home. So, you know, we, everyone has a role and we're all doing our roles. Well, people have to get rest. And so one of the things we learn from a staffing perspective is that we have got to force people to go home, because I need you to come back tomorrow and be fresh to help do whatever needs to get done. And, and that's probably the, I don't know that it's a lesson learned, but it's something we're really gonna have to drive next time, because we can't have, you can't have everybody exhausted, uh, when they're trying to respond to an, an accident. So, uh, but people are just so invested in doing the right thing, and they had a role to play and they wanted to play their role.

Speaker 5: ( 42:31 ) So it was really hard to get people to say, what I really need you to do is go home and get about four hours of sleep, take a shower, and come back. Um, and I would say that was probably one of our greatest challenges. Again, it, it's not necessarily communications lesson learned, but certainly the communications staff, um, was absolutely dedicated to, you know, delivering on what we wanted to say, creating that messaging, putting videos together, you know, doing Facebook Live, um, preparing communications for our senior executives, for all of our work groups, monitoring social, and so all of that, you know, there was just a flurry of activity and I, I, I think no one wanted to leave because everybody wanted to make sure that, that the accident response was the best it could possibly be.

Speaker 2: ( 43:17 ) Well, I think that says it all. Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed today's episode of the new CCO, be sure to check out our latest episodes and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, leave us a rating and a review. To find out more about what's happening at Page, please visit us@page.org. Special thanks. Go to the Home Depot and to rivet smart audio for making this season of the new CCO possible. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next time on the new CCO.