Airbus vs. Ashton Kucher & Twitter

Some background is useful, so start here. Mr Kucher is an actor. However his primary claim to fame may be his wife. He can make another claim – he was the first person on Twitter to reach 1 million followers. As of this writing Mr Kucher has over 2.5 million Twitter followers.

However what makes him worthy of attention is his note to his Twitter followers – “"A 30 year vetran pilot recommended 2 me that I dont ride on an airbus until they prove that the composite tail is not creating ths accidents." His exact words – you don’t need to know how to spell to be an actor. Think this is unfair? Then make your own assessment.

What is more, we know nothing of the “30 year vetran” pilot (sic). The unfortunate thing is this – he has over 2.5 million people who actually think this man has something useful to say. Now perhaps he does – but in the context of commercial aviation and travel, he clearly lacks credibility. Seriously lacks credibility. If these comments came from John Travolta, another actor, but one who knows the business of flying, well then we should all sit up and pay attention.

The power of Twitter is its ability to disseminate information instantly to a very wide audience. In some ways it is becoming the primary source of news for millions of people – its 43 employees run a system that has something like 6 million users (no official number is released), but credible Alexa ranks this as the world’s 27th busiest website. Now think of the impact Mr Kucher brings. It’s pretty scary actually. Scarier than flying anything.

As of this writing, Airbus has not responded. Nor would they in all likelihood. But the challenge is clear – Airbus has been tarnished by two unrelated accidents. The Internet has seen lots of conspiracy theories. The fact is that Airbus’ planes are certified by every appropriate agency as safe to fly and its planes carry thousands of people around the world safely daily (even Mr Kucher). If people start to question the safety of Airbus’ planes, the whole aviation business is hammered -from national safety agencies on down.

The truth is that any hysteria about travel safety is bad for the travel industry, which does not need this sort of misinformed attention. Flying is assumed to be safe because it is. It is safer than any other form of transportation. It’s too bad that people can mouth off without a safety license and be listened to without protection.

In other news --

• End of an era - Lufthansa bids A300 farewell
• Airbus launches initiative to reinforce flight data recovery capability
• ANA steps up 787 order
• Germans move into bmi

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