Qantas is the oldest continuously operating airline in the world. In 2010, one of Qantas' Airbus A380 jets blew an engine during a flight, causing metal debris. As a precaution, Qantas grounded its entire A380 fleet to inspect for potential engine issues. The grounding caused flight delays and frustration from passengers. Qantas' CEO addressed the media through interviews to provide updates on the incident and inspections. However, Qantas did not utilize social media to communicate and instead tried to divert blame to the engine manufacturer.

1. QANTAS AIR Qantas, or Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services, was founded in the Queensland outback in 1920—holding the nickname “The Flying Kangaroo.” Today, Qantas is known by many as the world’s leading long distance airline and one of the strongest brands in Australia (Quantas.com). The company continues to build a reputation for excellence, safety, operational reliability, engineering, and maintenance and customer service. Qantas is the oldest continuously operated airline in the world and the second oldest overall.

2. On November 4, 2010, CEO Alan Joyce, grounded the Qantas Airbus A380 fleet after one of the “superjumbo” jets blew out an engine, causing flames and large metal chunks to be shot from the jet. A safe emergency landing in Singapore was made with 459 passengers aboard. The grounding of an entire fleet caused many delays in flights and flared much frustration from passengers. The precaution to ground these aircrafts were to make sure that no other Airbus A380s had engine problems. The only physical damage from this crisis was that the engine of the initial crisis aircraft completely blew out, but this was not a fatal issue because the planes were designed to fly on only two engines. They had to suspend A380 services until they were completely confident that Qantas safety requirements had been met before any other passenger could fly.

3. A company can really show their true colors in a time of crisis like this one. How a company responds really highlights what they are truly made of: - Social Media Qantas did not utilize social media after this crisis when stakeholders were taking to Twitter and Facebook about the situation. o After the initial crisis of the engine going out, many passengers that were aboard the plane immediately began to tweet pictures of the damage to the plane as their aircraft sat on the tarmac (managementhelp.org). o In the hours after the crisis occurred, Qantas officials were desperate and scrambling to address false reports by the media, one even stating that the plane had actually crashed. o Qantas tried to deny that there was any wreckage to the aircraft, while pictures from passengers clearly showed that the plane had been damaged and that there had been fallen debris.

4. - News Releases and Announcements: o CEO Alan Joyce did a good job of personally making himself available to the public through news releases and press conferences swiftly after the crisis occurred. o In a matter of a little over three weeks after the crisis occurred, Alan Joyce made himself available in at least six radio and television interviews since he had to ground an entire fleet of Airbus 380s. o This public urgency, motivation and care was probably a factor in Qantas being able to retain so many passengers.

6. In the future, Qantas needs to continue to have a quick response to the public through radio and television, not blame their partners, and utilize social media in order to directly contact stakeholders.