Originally Posted by Often1

In the real world -- far, far away from FT -- it is not only common, but almost uniform to require that settlements be confidential. Any lawyer who advises a commercial customer otherwise is a fool and any company which does so is foolish.

It does not, in fact, hurt the carrier's brand. Bad stuff happens every day all across the world on airlines, in car services, at hotels & restaurants. 99.99% of the time, the NDA works, the customer is satisfied and the public never hears about it. In the miniscule # of matters where the issue goes public, it's a big nothing other than in places far, far, far away from the real world, such as FT.