British Airways PR

There are some (but very few) institutional names/brands that to some extent are as 'immune' as you can be to bad publicity. Whilst it may have an initial negative impact they will soon go back to business as normal.

The xmas strike worked in their favour less bacause of their own PR response but more because of the car crash that became the Union's handling of the situation.

BA relies on the fact that for every negative story that comes out, the fact is that they continue to carry more UK passengers around the world than all of the other 'quality' airlines and 99% of those passengers have a positive experience and will use them again. Plus they provide UK travellers with a wider choice of destinations than their competitors. Yes, Virgin/Emirates etc might offer a better flying experience, but they go head to head on a relitively small number of routes.

The biggest PR fiasco that BA have faced recently was the opening of T5 but even that is now pretty much water under the bridge (note: I flew from there two weeks ago and was out of the airport and in my car within 25 mins of landing). The funniest thing I did read about BA and their handling of the T5 crisis was a story about one of the press officers who, on having unaswerable questions fired at him from a group of journalists, literally ran away and locked himself in a toilet cubicle. Much to the amusement of the journalists who then ridiculed him. The feeling from the journalists was that if he simply turned round and said "Look, I don't know the answers, I am giving you every bit of information I get and when I get more you will be the first to know", they would have simply thanked him.