Originally Posted by
orbitmic
Indeed, and because when you face a situation of almost certain reputational damage and want to implement a corrective measure, you should just be a bit too generous rather than a bit too mean.
For that same reason, I would also personally not favour doing things which are simply targeted at French residents and not others. Others who have been disrupted by the strike will see it on the website or hear about it and say: "gosh, and nothing for me while I had to cancel my trip? What a cheek!" I think that in terms of "damage control", you have two strategies - either you individualise based on actual problems, or you cast the net as wide as possible. To me, doing in between based on probabilities while some French residents have not been affected at all and some foreign residents have been affected a lot would simply not make sense.
I think the message must be "we are so so so sorry" and it needs to be clear enough that everyone willing to hear will understand it!
I fully agree.
There are two separate issues. Proper treatment of affected pax, French or not, and that includes compensation either in the form of money or miles (I am not talking about a few thousands but a few 10,000s). Of all the people that I know who were affected (to and from HKG), only one knew that he could claim 600. As we all know, this was never advertised on AF website, only on some obscure press release dated 15 September on the corporate website. It would be stupid for AF to play hide and seek and not volunteer the compensation.
The forthcoming campaign to regain goodwill can be targeted, but there is no reason to only target those affected. Given the media coverage and the images of stranded pax, AF badly needs to regain the trust of all pax, not only those that got affected. And the campaign can be different whether the tickets originate in France, Europe or far away.