In the wake of today’s earlier post about airlines’ PR struggles (Foggy skies ahead), I wanted to bring attention to those airlines that are making strides in the PR game and going against the grain of negativity and customer complaints. As I mentioned in the previous post, Alaska Airlines is the top-ranked traditional network airline, according to the 2009 J.D. Power and Associates customer satisfaction survey. Despite its success, Alaska is not content to simply provide an excellent traveling experience — the airline’s regional afflilate, Horizon Air, has livened up its fleet with a colorful collegiate livery that recognizes five universities that, like the airline, call the Pacific Northwest home.

Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State and Boise State are the five institutions that see their colors and logos emblazoned on a Horizon turboprop plane. However, being Duck fans here, those are the photos you’ll find below. This post is a fitting nod both to Alaska and Horizon’s clever customer relations techniques, and — pardon my upcoming “Go Ducks!” moment — to Oregon’s incredible win over USC on the football field this past Saturday! (On another football note, Horizon’s university livery planes are scheduled to make stadium fly-overs during key games this season. The press release for the University of Washington’s livery debut — a game in which the Ducks, again, emerged victorious — is found here.)

What do you think of the Oregon paint job? If you’re interested in another school’s livery, more photos can be found here.

Why do airlines have such bad PR?

Airlines are in a constant struggle to maintain positive PR, thanks to a large population of angry, vocal passengers. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that rising fees, delayed planes and unpleasant accommodations are what drive irritated customers and their rants to the Internet. Nothing travels faster than bad news, and airlines have had a tough time keeping up with the latest complaints — or quieting a potential firestorm before it blows into an inferno.

Passengers expect flights to be uneventful, which leaves little wiggle room for airline employees when a few gears in their well-oiled machine inevitably slip. Being on a PR staff for an airline has got to be one of the hardest PR gigs in the world.

While all of the blogs and blog entries dedicated to customer complaints bring issues to the surface that many airline PR staffers would rather keep buried, the one constant thread in every story is airline executives’ lack of connection with customers. As C-level employees, these individuals are the faces of a company and one of an airline’s most important tools. A kind gesture that earns high views could do wonders for a hurting airline, reassuring customers that they’ll be well taken care of if they fly with that carrier. However, airlines have made their PR nightmares even more severe by allowing no leeway or leniency on customer pleas and complaints. By robotically stamping “NO” on all requests, airline executives have alienated customers, which not only leads to blog posts like this one, which calls for a CEO’s resignation, but also irreparably damages that airline’s relationship with the customer — and everyone he or she angrily tells.

In the case of Dave Carroll, more than 5.8 million people tuned into his customer service complaint after United baggage handlers broke his $3,500 Taylor guitar. The carrier claimed no fault, and as a retort, the Canadian musician made this video:

Furthermore, Carroll took to his own blog with a detailed account of the original incident and the “customer service” he encountered in the aftermath. It’s eloquently and diplomatically written, and I wonder why an airline wouldn’t reward Carroll for his good demeanor and peaceful approach to the situation. It could set an example that “playing nice pays off” for the countless other passengers who will file claims in the future, leading to better customer relations and fewer angry, expletive-filled tirades. (Note: a few days ago, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer blogged that Carroll, returning to United’s friendly skies, found his luggage lost upon arriving in Denver. Despite United’s promises to do better, Carroll is still meeting travel woes. Due to his fame in this department, Carroll’s misfortune is causing more bad PR for United.)

Some airlines have their PR machines working in the blogging sector, with mixed results. Southwest uses a colorful, active blog (Nuts About Southwest) and an ad campaign that highlights its customer- and bag-friendly fee policies to win customers’ hearts. However, consumers still think the company could do more; in this year’s J.D. Power and Associates customer satisfaction survey, Southwest ranked no. 2 among low-cost airlines. JetBlue earned the top nod in this category; for traditional network carriers, Alaska, Continental and Delta were named the top three customer-friendly airlines. JetBlue also hosts a blog, as does Delta. All three of these blogging airlines focus their content on internal employee events, new destinations, or guest posts from executives; rarely will a post deal with anything in the sky. While putting a friendly face on the business operations of a major service company may put customers more at ease with their travel experiences, all the content seems a little too lighthearted when contrasted with the anti-airline posts that often appear juxtaposed in a Google search. However, crisis communications blogs have crashed and burned for airlines in the past; American Airline’s now-defunct AA Conversations was launched in summer 2008 after the airline endured a pilot’s strike that caused 3,300 flights to be cancelled. After only a handful of blog posts — of which the last was ironically titled “Let’s Keep Talking…” — the blog inexplicably went silent, and has now been erased from host site blogger.com completely with no explanation. When AA tried to use social media to communicate with customers in a crisis situation, it failed miserably. Other airlines may have taken note from this social media mishap by steering their topics towards the warm and fuzzy. And now, in the age of Twitter, airlines do not need blogs to reach customers in times of crisis; airline errors appear in Twitter’s Trending Topics and searches, making it easier for PR staff to monitor the general buzz on a daily basis.

However, the power to monitor does not come with the power to silence. Until airlines can find a way to make peace with customers and the big negative PR machine they fuel, it only guarantees that future PR practitioners will always find jobs — and possibly some free airline tickets — working to manage airlines’ gloomy image. Maybe one of us will even find the missing link in this PR game and be able to turn a seemingly futile effort to the positive. What do you think? Will that ever be possible for airlines? What are your ideas to help turn the tide of this negative PR?

Last week, flying below the radar of almost anyone not in tech’s innermost circles, Google CEO Eric Schmidt sat down for a keynote interview at Gartner’s ITXPO* in Florida. What did Schmidt discuss? The future of the Web. And why should we, as current or aspiring PR pros care? Well, Schmidt’s forecast could mean there are many changes in store for how we do our jobs.

ReadWriteWeb summarized the meat of Schmidt’s predictions, which is a great read (with video content, too) for anyone interested in Web innovations. However, as a PR student, Schmidt really struck a chord with me when he started talking about how teenagers use the Internet. “They consume this stuff very, very differently,” he advised the audience, explaining further that teenagers are “particularly good at manipulating all these [applications] seamlessly.”

While he wasn’t addressing an audience of PR practitioners, he said one thing that rings very true for our field: “Five to 10 years from now, that’s your employee.”

Just as companies like Google must acclimate to a changing Web landscape, so too must PR practitioners as we prepare for an influx of even newer media and digital strategies that haven’t yet been conceptualized. That’s what makes defining a PR education so difficult. How do you know that the courses you’re taking today will be relevant mid-career – or even five years from now? What is that “next big thing” to hit the Internet? Some teenagers are probably already using it now, but we haven’t heard of it. Recently, the UO’s journalism school revamped its PR curriculum to better train us for the “new media” landscape, and I am very thankful. Courses are focusing more and more on the Web as a PR tool, and while we still learn how to write a news release, we have adapted it to a variety of forms and have learned how to reach out to opinion leaders who seek less conventional forms of information.

Yes! I have conquered another digital trend.

But in reality, even the tools we’re learning now won’t last too long in the changing digital workplace. PR pros in the digital age will be responsible for continually re-educating themselves as social media morphs and new communications tools are made available. I wish I could tell you more about what may be in store, but the truth is, nobody knows. Adapting to new innovations will likely require on-the-spot adjustments and training. Many PR professionals, still lagging slightly behind the learning curve, have taken it upon themselves to teach themselves the things that today’s PR students are now learning in the classroom, such as uses of Twitter, blogs and other new technologies. That’s why I really applaud Edelman for instituting the “Rotnem” program, which recently earned coverage in the Chicago Tribune. Rotnem, which spells “Mentor” backwards, “assigns junior staff members to serve as social media guides for their senior ones.” Other companies, too, have both formally and informally called upon younger employees to show superiors how to navigate the ropes of social media. As someone on the brink of starting a PR career,  I’m inspired to see entry-level practitioners working alongside high-ranking executives – including regional presidents – through Edelman’s program. What an amazing way to forge valuable relationships and start influencing decisions in the workplace! Maybe it’s my own, 20-something bias, but I think Rotnem and other informal, mid-career educational programs are an asset to the PR practice. And I can acknowledge that I won’t always be on the supplying end of the cutting-edge knowledge; we will all have to take a lesson from the young PR pros at some point in our careers, as new digital innovations again change the PR landscape. Do you agree? How would you react to being on the other side of the digital divide?

In all honesty, we’ll probably all have Schmidt to blame for half of these new innovations. Who knows what he and his cohorts at Google are cooking up right now? We’ll just have to wait, see, learn and adapt.

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*If you’re really interested, Gartner is “the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company,” and its recent symposium, ITXPO, was billed as “the world’s most important gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives.”

But I promise to rectify that situation as soon as possible! Welcome to my latest blog endeavor, which I hope will help both you and me learn a little more about this crazy PR world we’re living in. As of right now, I’m still a PR rookie, but with a degree under my belt (coming June 2010) and a few internships already proudly tucked in my pocket, I’m eager to get out into the real world and start doing what I’ve been studying and admiring from afar all this time. In the interim, this blog is a place where college students on the cusp of a career and seasoned PR veterans can all join the conversation and offer their insights about who is doing what in our field, who could use a little PR rescue (some CPR, you could say), and who truly sets the bar for exemplary work.

If you’re interested in learning more about me, look no further. You can find two previous blogs I’ve written (now retired) in the column at right, which will give you insight to my life experiences and academic interests. I’m a Bay Area native and can’t wait to return home and build the foundation to my PR career on familiar soil. This summer, I interned in Apple’s PR department for the iPhone team, and I’m now 100 percent certain I want to pursue a career in tech or consumer PR. I’m an avid Ducks fan, a sorority leader who continually looks to break stereotypes, an oldest child, and I love road trips. Any other questions? Or do you have a great PR story to share? Leave ‘em in the comments section, and I’ll be sure to take a peek.

Now, you've seen me, too.