English 420Y - Business Writing Online

Luntz describes how it would be an ideal world if everyone had all the knowledge they needed when born. This made me begin to think of the JetBlue crisis and how it would be ideal if everyone knew everything because then there would be less confusion and people would actually know what was going on. I don’t think that the JetBlue crisis was handled as effectively as it could have been. Luntz also stated in the chapter that the truth matters. I believe that the truth is always an important component in communication. There are times when the truth is better left untold and other times where it is necessary in order to maintain a good relationship with the other person/s involved. In the case of the JetBlue crisis I think that if the truth was originally communicated to the customers there would have been a lot less people angry and stranded.

I feel like my response to the situation will reflect exactly what I would have expected from the company as a customer. I am going to try and place myself in the situation and think of what it would be like. Once I get a feeling for what it must have been like to be involved in this I would then know what the company could do to make the situation better. Right now after reading several articles about the situation I think that the situation was handled the best it could have been at that time but things also could have been done differently to try to make the crisis go a bit smoother. I know that the company has built their reputation on not canceling flights but if in a situation of possibly being stranded customers would much rather know the flight is canceled rather then sit on the plane or in the airport for hours upon hours.

I feel like that if the executives that made the decision to handle the situation like this were in the same position as the customers they would realize the little mistakes they made. If they would have placed themselves in the customer’s shoes maybe the crisis could have been avoided and instead of people stranded in planes on the runway there would be canceled flights and people staying home.

I don’t think that JetBlue had a crisis plan and in the document for stakeholders it describes the importance of all companies having a crisis plan which in the end may have been their problem in handling the crisis to the best of their ability. . If all companies had a crisis plan then a potential crisis may never really become a crisis. To me that is considered good management. In making a crisis plan the company must have in mind who is their audience that must be targeted. In the JetBlue crisis I feel like the main audience, the customers, were left out of the communication loop and were not properly informed. For that matter, it sounded like half the staff didn’t know what was going on either! Informing the staff only makes sense. There are many lessons to be learned from this JetBlue crisis and I am excited to write some documents and get feedback on how to improve my professional writing in a crisis situation.