Swissair- their spin doctoring was superb & effective (of course look where they are today due to their own stupidity).

Chamber's 21st Century Dictionary defines "spin doctor" as "someone, especially in politics, who tries to influence public opinion by putting a favorable bias on information presented to the public or to the media." Paul Whitely, Professor of Politics at the University of Sheffield, describes spin doctoring as a "very 'post-modernist' phenomenon, based on the idea that there is no truth, only realities which can be created or destroyed by acts of will."

If anyone doubts that Swissair’s PR team put these principles to work with a vengeance in the aftermath of the SR111 crash should read the article below, from the WSJ in ’00, the opening line of which is “Since Swissair Flight 111 crashed … the airline has done more for the families of the 229 victims than any other airline involved in a disaster.” Talk about bias! The article goes on to assert that Swissair made advance payments to families, in spite of the concerns of its insurers because “it was the right thing to do,” even though it wouldn’t ultimately reduce their total financial liability: The article might as well be titled, “Compassionate airline does the right thing. Greedy victims’ families sue anyway!”

The article also contained a number of blatant lies, not the least of which was that Swissair pressured the Nova Scotia government for a seaside gravesite for the victims of the crash and successfully lobbied to ban the media from the burial service. In fact it was the N.S. government itself that worked at achieving these goals and Swissair had stated many times that they were not involved in the memorials in any capacity. It seemed that many articles that appeared in the U.S. press made the airline out to be so wonderful, it was forgotten just how horrific the death and destruction was that it left in the wake of this crash that could have easily been prevented.

A strange poster who claimed he was from Geneva, Switzerland and seemed to have an agenda- that Swissair was a great company who always did everything right (wonder what he thinks now that he probably lost his job in the demise of the airline caused by extremely poor management) kept asking over and over again whether Swissair had treated families well following this horrific crash. It finally hit me one day how ridiculous the question was. My God, it was my daughter I cared about and the way they had treated her was unspeakable. Incidentally this same poster IMed Mark on Yahoo messenger and introduced himself initially as having the last name of Zimmerman prior to posting on the board. It’s also worth noting that the few Swiss posters that we had on the board disappeared around the time it became know that Swissair was falling apart and Maurio Corti became the CEO of Swissair. What I was told is that he ordered all Swissair employees to stay off the discussion groups on the web.

The focus should have been on the victims and the terrible loss- not what a swell group of people ran Swissair because they tossed money at family members when they were in fact responsible for their deaths. Mark and I were not only in shock due to the brutal death of our young daughter but the fact that the press was almost making the airline sound like the victim of some act of God. Swissair touted itself as the caring airline but there were many of us who unfortunately knew better. We watched with tremendous frustration as a few family members seemed to befriend the airline and buy into their ridiculous spin. At one point I called CNN to ask them to please listen to my side of the story and they told me if I had any complaints, I should direct them to the airline because they heard just how wonderful their handling of this terrible tragedy was.

Swissair Crash Tests Relations
With Insurers
By Margaret A. Jacobs

02/15/2000
The Wall Street Journal
Page B1
(Copyright (c) 2000, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

Since Swissair Flight 111 crashed off the Nova Scotia coast in September 1998, the airline has done more for the families of the 229 victims than any other airline involved in a disaster.
Despite the concerns of its insurers, Swissair has offered families advance payments of roughly $154,000 without forcing survivors to wait years for a court order or an out-of-court settlement. It has also reimbursed extensive travel and funeral expenses, and even paid to restore victims' watches recovered from the ocean floor. Swissair executives say the moves were good public relations, as well as the right thing to do.
In an unprecedented letter to the president of Switzerland on the first anniversary of the crash, an association of surviving family members praised Swissair's "exemplary conduct" and "humanitarian attitude" in handling the process "even if [it] wasn't obligated to do so."
But is all this likely to reduce Swissair's liability or the number of lawsuits filed against it? Probably not. While some families have felt so grateful toward Swissair that they have been reluctant to sue, most have done so in order to preserve their claims and fulfill fiduciary duties. The airline has already settled actions filed on behalf of 10 passengers and faces 170 lawsuits in the U.S., says Desmond Berry, a lawyer in New York who represents Swissair.
Moreover, Swissair will likely face increased costs because its crash was the first since major carriers agreed in 1997 not to follow liability limits set 70 years ago by the Warsaw Convention. The limits had kept overall payments to victims' families as low as $8,300, and never higher than $75,000, except in a handful of cases in which a court found "willful misconduct" by the airline. A new convention incorporating most of the airlines' 1997 agreement is likely to be ratified later this year.
Miles Gerety, who lost a brother on Flight 111 and is president of the International Association of the Families of Swissair Flight 111 Inc., praises Swissair. "They have set the gold standard in this area," he says. Indeed, Alaska Airlines says it is following Swissair's lead after the Jan. 31 crash of one of its planes off the California coast.
In the Swissair crash, lawyers for both plaintiffs and the airline predict that the carrier's insurers will pay out more than in any previous crash because the flight had an unusually large number of high-earning U.S. executives and professionals on board. Under wrongful-death laws in most states, compensation is based primarily on a victim's earning potential and whether they had dependents. Even if U.S. courts accept most of the airline's procedural defenses, the typical family is expected to receive at least a million dollars more, lawyers say.
Whatever the impact on liability, "Swissair has done the best job any airline has ever done" of addressing the needs of the victims' families, says Hans Ephraimson, who is still litigating with Korean Air Lines 17 years after his daughter perished on one of its flights and has served as an unpaid intermediary between airlines and families in numerous crashes since.
The relationship between Swissair, which hadn't had a crash in 19 years, and the victims' families got off to as good a start as could be expected after the Sept. 2, 1998, tragedy. Within hours, the airline -- in conjunction with Delta Airlines, its code-sharing partner on the flight -- had employees at New York's Kennedy Airport provide limited information and grief counseling. Following the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800, airlines have been required by law to take this step in crashes involving every flight that takes off from or lands in the U.S.
Walter Vollenweider, the Swissair executive then in charge of the Americas, arrived at Kennedy Airport within an hour to personally comfort family members. In addition, Swissair and Delta flew multiple family members to Halifax, near where the crash occurred, at their expense.
Shortly after the crash, Swissair also sent letters of condolence to family members, including checks for $20,000 to be used for living expenses and to be credited against future settlements or jury awards. Few airlines had provided such payments.
Two weeks ago Alaska Airlines offered $25,000 advance payments to families of victims of its recent crash, as did American Airlines after a June 1999 crash in Little Rock, Ark. EgyptAir offered $134,000 payments to families of victims of its October crash, but they must agree not to take the airline to court. "EgyptAir wants to come to full and final settlements as soon as possible, rather than do it piecemeal," says Mr. Berry, the attorney, who also represents EgyptAir.
Swissair's actions brought the company into conflict with its insurers, including its lead insurer, Ace London Aviation Ltd., underwriting through its syndicate at Lloyd's of London, the British insurer. The $20,000 payment particularly rankled the insurers. "They said it had never been done so quickly" or in such a large amount, says Hans Peter Berchtold, deputy general counsel of SAir Group Holding AG, Swissair's parent. "They weren't used to airlines communicating. They told us that anything we said in public could have an impact on our future liability," says Karin Anderegg Bigger, SAir Group's general counsel.
"There were discussions and debate, but it was one of the smoothest-running claims we ever had," says John Larkins, aviation-claims adjustor for Ace. "We had money on the table fairly rapidly."
Relations with the families haven't always been smooth. In October, Mr. Gerety, on behalf of the nascent family association, asked Swissair to forward a letter from him to all victims' relatives offering membership and emotional support. Family members had been communicating via a Web site set up by Swissair, but they didn't want the airline to monitor their discussions. On lawyers' and insurers' advice, the company balked out of fear that forwarding the letter would violate the families' privacy and hurt it in litigation.
Mr. Gerety threatened a public boycott. He also had his brother's former boss, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, raise the issue in a meeting with Jeffrey Katz, president of SAir Group. "I was ready to put some of the mothers in our group on the air" to complain, he says. Not until several months later did the airline relent and offer to send letters to the victims' families on the group's behalf. By then, the association didn't need the airline's help.
Swissair further angered many of the families by offering to give another unprecedented advance payment of $134,000 for each U.S. passenger who died, but offering non-U.S. families a maximum of $134,000, no matter how many members were on board. Since courts outside the U.S. typically award a third or less of what U.S. courts do in wrongful-death actions, Swissair's insurers told the company to limit payments to non-U.S. residents. "We had a big hassle and clash with the insurers over this," says Mr. Berchtold.
Stephen Wilkinson, a senior vice president at Swissair's insurance broker Marsh Ltd., who served as a conduit between the airline, its outside lawyers and the insurers, downplays the conflict and says the insurers didn't want non-U.S. families to receive "windfalls" if courts in other countries didn't require it.
Once word of the offer reached the media, Swiss papers asked whether the airline believed an American life had more value than a European one. "It put moral pressure on us," says Mr. Berchtold.
Nonetheless, the airline refused to discuss the two-tiered offer with Mr. Gerety, a public defender in Connecticut, because he is a lawyer, or with a European family member, because he had filed a lawsuit.
So late last February, at the request of Mr. Gerety's group, Mr. Berchtold met with Mr. Ephraimson. "I politely pointed out the revenues that [other] airlines had lost after they did not treat the passengers' families fairly," says Mr. Ephraimson, who speaks fluent German and worked for years in Switzerland. A few days later, Swissair extended the offer to everyone.
Things improved after that. Last spring, at the request of Mr. Gerety's association, company executives worked successfully through diplomatic channels to overcome the Nova Scotia government's opposition to a victims' seaside gravesite. Last summer, Swissair pushed Canadian authorities to prevent the press from photographing coffins lined up for the first anniversary memorial service in Halifax.
The airline, sharing the expense with Delta, flew almost as many family members to that memorial as the families requested. "Sometimes even I thought the requests to bring 20 family members were too much," says Mr. Gerety. Over 650 people attended.
After sailing out to the crash site with 200 family members, Mr. Gerety lunched with Hannes Goetz, chairman of SAir Group.
The two sides remain friendly, though the airline continues to make the traditional arguments in court papers that the families shouldn't be entitled to damages for pain and suffering. The airline is also arguing that European families shouldn't be allowed to sue in U.S. courts.
"There are some families that take umbrage at [Swissair's legal] posture," says Mr. Gerety. But he feels differently about the airline. "Really, at the end, they blurred their roles -- they forgot who they are in a good way," he says.

Wednesday, February 16, 2000

Swissair story upsets families

Wall Street Journal report
praises airline, slights province

(appeared in the Halifax Daily News)

Swissair story upsets families: Wall Street Journal report praises airline, slights province
The Halifax Daily News
Wednesday, February 16, 2000
Page: 7
Section: News
Byline: By RICHARD DOOLEY, The Daily News
An article in the Wall Street Journal that alleges Swissair pressured the Nova Scotia government for a seaside gravesite for the victims of the 1998 crash of Flight 111 and successfully lobbied to ban the media from the burial service is provoking controversy.
The article published yesterday says the airline has done more for the families of the 229 victims of the air crash than any other airline involved in a disaster.
The airline offered families advance payments of $154,000 US to settle claims against the airline. It also provided $20,000 to individual families within hours of the crash Sept. 2, 1998, to be put toward living expenses.
More than 650 family members were flown to Nova Scotia aboard planes provided by the airline in the weeks after the crash, and during last year's memorial services marking the first anniversary of the crash.
Miles Gerety, who lost his brother aboard Flight 111 and is president of the 200-member International Association of Families of Swissair Flight 111, said Swissair has set the ``gold standard'' for airlines dealing with families of crash victims.
The article states that Swissair pressed the Nova Scotia government for a seaside burial site for the unidentified remains of victims but fails to mention weeks of community meetings and heartfelt presentations to the Flight 111 Memorial Secretariat to decide how to memorialize the disaster. Swissair officials have repeatedly denied any involvement in the selection or design of the memorials near Peggy's Cove and Bayswater, Lunenburg Co. Photographers and television cameras were kept away from the burial service at the request of the families.
Mark Fetherolf, who lost his 16-year-old daughter Tara aboard Flight 111, calls the Wall Street Journal story an ``amazing PR job.''
``I don't know where this is coming from,'' he said. ``Swiss-air is just as aggressive in litigation against family members as it ever would be.''
Fetherolf said Gerety's group doesn't represent all the families involved.
``This story bothers me because of the implication that all families of Flight 111 are pleased with Swissair's performance,'' said Fetherolf. ``We aren't.''

Mark’s letter that was published in the WSJ in response to this article which outraged a number of people who had lost loved ones in the tragedy.

Swissair's Treatment of Victims'Families

We lost our 16-year-old daughter Tara in the crash
of Swissair 111. We are offended at the suggestion
("Swissair Crash Tests Relations With Insurers,"
Marketplace, Feb. 15) that Swissair exhibits "exemplary
conduct" or "humanitarian attitude" in its "handling of
the process."

Swissair's handling of the crash
has been as crass and cynical as any corporation
faced with a group of victims. Their form letter said
essentially: "Sorry for your loss. Call our 800 number to
receive cash, no strings." The letter didn't mention
Tara's name. Miles Gerety, the head of the informal
group The Families of Swissair 111, says that Swissair
sets "the gold standard" in handling family concerns.
We think that the "green standard" more accurately
describes Swissair's approach.

Swissair has made no
concessions whatsoever in the litigation. We think that Mr.
Gerety and his group have been duped by Swissair. The
gesture of expedient payments that mitigate near-term
financial hardship for those who need it is commendable,
but Swissair is far too concerned with the positive
spin it places on the commendations. There are reasons
why Swissair 111 crashed. It was not an act of God.
It is likely that Swissair 111 crashed because
somebody exercised stunningly poor judgment concerning the
safety of passengers. We trusted Swissair with our
daughter. Their failure is our loss. No amount of slick PR
changes that sad reality.

Mark and Barbara
Fetherolf
Haverford, Pa.

The very wise words of a poster on the sr111 board who summed it up pretty accurately. She had lost a friend in the Swissair tragedy:

"I think your letter really gets to the point -
that compasion and corporate practices are in direct
conflict. If they did the right thing - at least from a
moral perspective (and, of course, after the crash) -
SwissAir management would be fired by their board. Really
sad that corporate profits and inflated egos take
precedence over being human.

Unfortunately it seems
like this attitude was also pervasive prior to the
crash."

Here are some excerpts from a letter that Mark and I received from Gail Dunham, the head of the highly respected air safety group, National Air Disaster Alliance/Foundation (NADAF), located in Washington D.C. www.planesafe.org

Dear Mark and Barbara,

Thank you for your excellent Letter to the Editor that was published in the “Wall Street Journal” today. When I read the original article I was shocked. I Xeroxed the article and faxed it to a couple of board members for their “read.” They also saw “red flags” in the article. We think that you are 100% correct.

Years ago the airlines would get cooperation from the family members with flowers and paying for a funeral. People learned in time that the airline was not their friend. It took an Act of Congress to pass the Family Assistance Act of 1996 to provide some humane treatment for families after an air disaster. The testimony that supported the passage of the bill was incredible.
-please continue to be a voice for air safety.
Your loss was so great and we know that life will never be the same. Some of our most active members are those who have lost children.

Edited to add the following. This appeared in one of the local papers in Halifax following the WSJ article:

"Thumbs Down" (an understatement to say the
least!!)

"Thumbs down to a PR spin by Swissair that was swallowed
by The Wall Street Journal, which reported the
litigation-locked airline pushed the Nova Scotia government for a
Peggy's Cove area burial site for some victims of Flight
111. In fact, the airline had no involvement in the
planning and constructing of memorials--and said so at the
time."