The MAX Problem is Trust

This week, American Airlines began flying the Boeing 737 MAX airplane again, after two years of a worldwide grounding of the plane following two deadly crashes.

This decision appears entirely to be made without the customer in mind.

Rarely in history have travelers considered the model of the plane when they choose flights. Only in the tiny print below the itinerary and price, is the plane type indicated. During quick search for a flight from SFO to Honolulu on Google Flights, I had to click a drop-down arrow to see the details, including the plane type - in this case an Airbus 330. Thus several baffled customers reacted negatively when they learned they were on that American flight, so much so that American was forced to offer to switch planes for free.

Section4’s Brand Sprint contains a module around protecting your brand in a time of crisis. The classic example is from Johnson & Johnson, which pulled every bottle of Tylenol from the shelves in 1982 after someone tampered with bottles and killed 7 people with cyanide. Leadership did not look to divert blame or downplay the enormity of the incidents. Pulling all of the bottles and putting R&D behind designing a tamper-proof lid proved J&J’s devotion at the time to living and breathing its values. Too bad the recent opioid crisis didn’t get the same level of devotion to the Credo, but that’s a rant for another post.

Boeing’s response after the two fatal crashes was to insist that the plane was safe. The CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, initially blamed the foreign pilots for the crashes and refused to acknowledge what were actually known issues with the MAX flight-control technology. Deep dives into Boeing’s culture during the Muilenburg era revealed one of focus on cutting costs and driving up the stock price. Engineering and safety took a back seat to the bottom line, and it was innocent customers who paid the price.

So not only did one brand devalue its customers in the first place: Boeing, but another greatly underestimated the negative reaction of reintroducing the plane without warning: American.

Now let’s look to American. Somewhat buried on their home page is a link to an undated update about the return to service of the 737 MAX. I doubt that most who purchased tickets from Miami to New York were aware that the plane was indeed the 737 MAX. American’s PR suggests that they are being very transparent about which flights are on the 737 - yet when I did a flight search on aa.com, again the plane type is in tiny font with no mention of concern for customers’ worries.

Frankly, the planes are probably fine. Two years of scrutiny have forced Boeing to deal with the technical issues and release a safer plane. American - and all other airlines, struggling particularly during COVID 19, has a huge incentive to get those grounded planes back in the air as soon as possible. But both brands have messed with the one thing that makes or breaks you in business: do buyers trust you, not only with their money, but in this case with their lives?

In Extreme Trust, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, PhD advocate for radical transparency in order to forge a bond with customers and weather any storm. Southwest has done a great job with this, vowing even during the pandemic to keep employees on the payroll. The CEO reduced his pay to $0 through the end of 2021. THIS is how you behave - it seems simple, but so few company leaders have the political will to just do the right thing. Southwest is also the least leveraged airline and has seen a less volatile stock market performance (only 34% down compared to heavily-leveraged American Airlines, down by 55%).

Companies must do a better job at transparency and doing the right thing. Today’s consumers are now activists, and will not hesitate to publicly take their business elsewhere. Crises are inevitable - look at them as opportunities to build brand trust, and you will come out the other side with loyal customers who truly advocate for you.