Update – March 29, 2012: It looks like Jet Airways hasn’t really done anything on this case. Observe the recent interaction between Jet and Vishal.
Vishal: Jet flt from Ahm’bad to Bom. Plane smells like stale pigeon-poop and methi. Seat headrests not adjustable, mine’s between my shoulders. :/ (Link)
Jet: @V1SH4L Hi Vishal, please share the complete flight details at guestrelations@jetairways.com, for us to look into it. (Link)
Vishal: You didn’t do shit about my broken guitar, you won’t do shit about this. Frikkin’ PR eyewash! RT @jetairways: Hi … (Link)
Update – August 16, 2011: Jet Airways responds to Vishal Dadlani. Let’s see where this is headed.
@V1SH4L We’ve forwarded your complaint to Guest Relations for investigation. You’ll hear from them soon. (Link)
Vishal responds with a simple, “Thanks. Can’t wait to hear what they say.” (Link)
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Original post:
‘United Breaks Guitars’ is not just a song by Canadian musician Dave Carroll…it is also a Wikipedia page – deservedly so.
So, if you have already read what happened between Dave Carroll and United Airlines back in 2008, here’s an Indian equivalent!
Composer Vishal Dadlani (of Vishal Shekhar fame) is a prolific tweeter. Besides music, what also comes through his tweets are his refreshingly abrasive, outspoken nature, defying usual celebrity diplomacy. He has almost a lakh followers on Twitter currently.
Vishal posted a series of tweets yesterday noon about Jet Airways breaking fellow band member, Randolph Correia’s Gibson SG GT electric guitar! If colorful language on Twitter bothers you, sorry, I can’t help you – here are Vishal’s tweets.
Just opened Randolph’s guitar case, found the neck BROKEN! Jet Airways, I hope you all get buttfucked by camels! What the hell do we do now? (Link)
Aaaarrrrrgggghhh! Randolph uses the only Gibson GT SG in India. It’s a huge part of our sound! JET AIRWAYS, I wanna burn you down right now! (Link)
Ironically enough, I’m a Jet Platinum cardholder, and they are also part sponsors of this show we’re playing! Insane! (Link)
@V1SH4L holy shitt !! Our keyboard case also broke on JET AIRWAYS !! Most horrible airline@V1SH4L holy shitt !! Our keyboard case also broke on JET AIRWAYS !! Most horrible airline (Link)
@V1SH4L .. And they wanted to pay us rs.200 for the damage saying its not their responsibility !! (Link)
Vishal and his band Pentagram were on their way to Bangalore to peform at this gig, when this happened. Thankfully, a local band, Swarathma, helped Pentagram out just in time, if you were to go by Vishal’s follow-up tweet.
Now, what are Jet’s options? Let me list them out for you.
1. Ignore the whole incident – breakages happen…mishandling happens…and people complain and eventually get over it since life beckons them to start living again. After all, 95,000+ followers of one musician is no big deal – tweets go up in the air after 4-5 days and the country will forget all about it, if they were aware about it at all in the first place. Incidentally, this blog post will not go the tweet way.
2. If Vishal chooses to do a song, like Dave did, then Jet has a slightly bigger PR problem – one that gets longer legs than tweets. This is a wonderfully topical PR opportunity for Pentagram too – no, I wouldn’t call it blackmailing Jet or taking undue advantage of Jet Airways. Yes, I’d say that if Vishal does not choose to go through the legitimate route of complaining to Jet Airways first and seeking a solution. After doing so, if Jet does not take responsibility, as claimed by another musician, Aditi Singh Sharma (the 2 tweets above are from her), then I believe Vishal has every right to take the incident public in any form he chooses to.
3. If Jet Airways considers Vishal’s tweets as a formal complaint by itself and chooses to address the issue – refund the cost of the guitar, for example – then that is a PR master-stroke, depending on how they promote it. It’s a tough call, really – they can’t go all out and promote it since it means they need to talk about their callous baggage handling. But, at the same time, whenever there’s an allegation of baggage mishandling, they would have the last word with, ‘But we…<blah, blah>’. And yes, this would also mean they’d be held responsible for every incident of baggage mishandling and compensation may be sought from each incident.
That simply means one thing – that they need to own responsibility in the long run, not for one incident involving one celebrity musician. So much is being made out of social media engagement and social media marketing, but the fundamental point is not about the tools that enable social media – they have always been about organizations’ attitude towards their customers and stakeholders. Social media merely amplifies and manifests the chatter around organizations’ intent in caring (or not caring) enough for customers and stakeholders.
So, if Jet Airways has a stated policy of not owning responsibility for damages arising out of baggage mishandling and offers Rs. 200 (flat rate?) for any kind of damage, then this incident merely amplifies how monumentally self-serving (to Jet Airways) that policy is. If they chose to learn from this incident, make amends in Vishal’s case and eventually alter the policy so as to make it more common-sense based, then that is something Jet Airways should use to shout from the rooftops as a PR coup – deservedly so!
By the way, here’s Jet Airways official policy on missed, lost or damaged baggage.
Missing/lost/damaged baggage: While we take utmost care that your baggage arrives in proper condition, there may be occasions when baggage may be damaged or misplaced. In such a situation the passenger should immediately report the damage / missing baggage to our ground staff on arrival, before leaving the terminal building.
Further a Property Irregularity Report (PIR) has to be filed, which will be done by the staff. The case then will be settled as per company policy. Please note that once the passenger leaves the terminal building without registering a complaint of mishandled bag, Jet Airways will not be in a position to settle the claim.
Our liability for loss to baggage is limited to INR 450 per kg on domestic flights within India and USD 20 per kg lost on international flights, unless a higher value is declared in advance and additional charges are paid. Excess valuation may not be declared on certain types of articles. We assume no liability for fragile/perishable articles or already damaged items.
I really look forward to Vishal’s formal complaint to Jet Airways (long after he had left the terminal building – if I may add) and how Jet chooses to react if at all he does.
This is perhaps the best time to also add that Jet Airways is one of the brands in India that usually likes to send press releases about reaching fan number milestones in social media properties owned by it. It induces extreme cringe to even read statements like,
Jet Airways has also achieved yet another milestone in the social media space with the addition of over one lakh fifty thousand fans on Facebook, which is arguably the largest and most influential social networking website in the world. This achievement is significant as it bypasses fan figures of some of the top carriers in India and globally, within the social media space.
The same press release also has this quote from their Chief Commercial Officer,
We actively focus to gather valuable feedback from guests on their experience with Jet Airways and strive to address any concerns raised by them. Going forward, we will continue to engage more of our members and will expand our presence through other tools in the social media space.
Let’s see if they have noticed Vishal’s concern and if they would bother addressing it.