EP 57 Which CEO did it better - American Air or India Air?

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When disaster strikes, every word matters. The recent Air India crash that claimed 270 lives has revealed a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at crisis communications - their CEO's statement was virtually identical to one previously delivered by American Airlines following their own tragic incident. 

This apparent copy-and-paste approach has ignited debate across social media, with critics creating side-by-side comparisons of both CEOs' delivery styles and questioning the ethics of reusing crisis messaging. But does originality truly matter during a crisis, or is effective communication the ultimate goal regardless of its source? As we analyze this controversy, we unpack why the content of a statement might matter more than its originality, especially when lives have been lost and stakeholders need immediate, transparent information.

The incident highlights a critical aspect of crisis preparedness that every organization should implement: having template statements ready for deployment. The impressive speed with which major airlines like Southwest, American, and Air India have issued statements following incidents demonstrates the value of advance preparation. Your crisis communications plan should include pre-approved templates for your most likely scenarios, allowing your team to quickly customize and deploy messaging within those critical first hours.

We also touch on the emerging role of artificial intelligence in crisis communications. Could AI have helped generate Air India's statement? As communicators, our challenge isn't whether AI will replace us, but how we can harness its capabilities to enhance our work. The question becomes: will you be a victim of technological change, or will you master these tools to become more effective?

Want to discuss crisis communications strategies for your organization or share your thoughts on this controversy? Email [e-mail] - we'd love to hear from you and possibly feature your questions in an upcoming episode.

We'd love to hear from you. Email the show at [e-mail].

Episode Transcript

Tom Mueller (00:08):
Hi everyone and welcome back to the Leading in a
Crisis podcast.
On this podcast, we talk allthings crisis management and we
deliver our content throughstorytelling and lessons learned
as shared by experienced crisisleaders.
I'm Tom Mueller.
Thanks for joining us again onthis episode.
I want to start today and justtalk about just a little

(00:31):
recognition that the podcast hasreceived recently.
We were recently ranked thefifth best crisis management
podcast for 2025 by a groupcalled Million Podcasts, which
is a podcast advertising agency.
So we're grateful to MillionPodcasts for the recognition of

(00:53):
this the Leading in a Crisispodcast and the work we are
doing here.
We've had some reallyinteresting guests and that
certainly drives listenershiphere, and we're thankful to all
the guests who've joined us overthe past two years on the
podcast.
On today's episode, I wanted tojust do a quick deep dive onto a

(01:16):
bit of a tempest in a teapot,but it's something that's
getting a bit of attention.
This is around the Air Indiacrash that happened on June 12th
in India.
A Boeing aircraft was justtaking off and apparently lost
power and then crashed shortlyafter takeoff, killing 270

(01:38):
persons on board.
Now you may remember thisflight because there was one
survivor one person in seat 11Awalked away from that crash.
That in itself is an amazingstory, and there's lots of news
coverage around that.
What I want to focus on today,though, is the crisis statement

(01:59):
that the Air India CEO used inissuing their first statement
about the incident.
At the time I heard that, Ithought boy, it sure sounds
familiar, and if you listen toour podcast, episode number 44,
you will recall that we did adeep dive on the American

(02:22):
Airlines crash at WashingtonDulles Airport, where an
aircraft collided with amilitary helicopter there,
killing everyone on board.
But we critiqued the AmericanAirlines initial statement, the
video that was put out by theCEO, and gave them high marks
for empathy on the delivery, forinformative content.

(02:46):
Everything about that statementjust caught us the right way.
We thought American Airlinesdid a very nice job.
You can go back to episode 44if you want to hear our take on
that.
It gets interesting todaybecause the Air India statement
that the CEO issued it was a CEOvideo is almost identical to

(03:10):
the American Airlines statement.
It's been a little entertainingto watch because Air India has
gotten some criticism from folkson the internet who take issue
with the fact that they arecopying the statement from
American Airlines For thosewatching on YouTube, I'm going

(03:31):
to share some content here fromthe X platform just showing some
of the criticism that's comeacross.
There's several people outthere on X who've done
side-by-side comparisons withthe two CEOs, the two statements
, and have actually sort ofpanned the Air India CEO because

(03:55):
his delivery was not quite asempathetic as the American
Airlines CEO's delivery on that.
That said, is it a big dealthat they copied the American
Airlines statement and used itpretty much verbatim?
What are your thoughts on that?

(04:17):
My thought is that's probablyokay.
It's a good statement as longas you deliver it well.
Good content is good content.
So I do not take issue with AirIndia doing that and in fact,
the it's high praise for theteam over at American Airlines,

(04:41):
for the communications folks whowrote that statement, for the
lawyers who approved it and, ofcourse, for the CEO who
delivered it so eloquently andempathetically.
Was it an honest statement?
Was it transparent?
Did that all come together andmake it a good statement for Air

(05:06):
India to use and in my view itdid and quibble about the
delivery form, the style andthat, but in terms of content I
thought it was a good statement.
I didn't have a problem withthat.
Now, if your crisis plan doesn'tinclude a pre-prepared

(05:27):
statement like that for you knowthe top three or four issues
that your company or your agencymight face, well, that's
something you should probablyget to work on.
Every crisis plan should have acouple of template statements
built in there that you can fillin a few blanks or modify it
just a little bit based oncircumstances and then get it

(05:51):
out there as quickly as you can.
We've been impressed in thepast as we've seen how quickly
companies are turning aroundcrisis statements.
I think the all-time winner inrecent years is Southwest
Airlines, who got a statementout very quickly.
American Airlines likewiseturned a CEO statement around

(06:14):
very quickly, and you have togive credit to the
communications teams at bothcompanies, and probably Air
India as well, for beingprepared, for having those
statements ready, for getting itthrough the approval process
quickly, for getting the CEO tosit down and record it and do a

(06:37):
nice job in the process.
All of that is a huge challengein an emergency situation.
Your teams have to be ready,your executives have to be
coached and they have tounderstand the importance of
communications in those firstcritical hours and minutes after

(06:59):
an incident like this.
So take a look at your plan andmake sure you've got that
content in there ready to go.
You know there's somespeculation too.
Did AI write that statement, atleast in the Air India use of it
?
And AI is, of course, a veryinteresting part of the

(07:20):
communications world and thebusiness world.
Now I don't know about you, butI find myself using AI more and
more.
I quite enjoy talking to Grokand asking questions and just
probing to see how much detailGrok can can pull up from its

(07:41):
database on various topics.
What's fascinating and quiteentertaining is just the
conversational nature of that AIof Grok anyway, and as opposed
to doing like a Google search orask Siri, the Grok AI is much

(08:03):
more friendly and personable andit's kind of fun.
Literally it's fun to go in andask questions and have a little
dialogue with it, and I can seethe hype and why there is so
much hype around AI, because itis going to be used for so many
things so soon it's coming.

(08:26):
Our challenge as communicatorsand as any business person is,
you know, how do we leverage it?
Is it going to take my job oram I going to master how to use
AI to do my job better.
That's the challenge each oneof us face in this current
dynamic environment.
So don't be a victim of it.
Learn how to use it, get out infront of it and you'll have

(08:49):
some job security out there.
Hey, that's all I wanted tocover with you today.
So thanks for joining us againon this episode of the podcast.
If you'd like to drop us anemail, you can email me, tom at
leadinginacrisiscom, and I surelook forward to that.
So thank you, and we'll see youagain soon.