American Airlines wants to know, because it believes “Spiders in my Dessert” could have been a public relations disaster of United Breaks Guitars proportions. (The arachnid, which allegedly lived inside the chocolate cake, makes an appearance at about 0:15. Delicious!)
In a presentation delivered at a recent airline conference, the airline claims quick actions by its communications team averted a PR problem when “Spiders” was posted this summer.
The video was accompanied by the following narrative:
this vid clearly shows the a spide[r] crawling around in my wife’s dessert which we were served yesterday (july 8, 2009). and no, it didnt just fall in there. when we first looked at it there was a web between the cake and the side of the plate it was on. it was its home. yum.
So why didn’t this gross-out video take off? First — and to its credit — the airline responded to the post with a brief and conciliatory note:
American and its food service providers make every effort to ensure that our food is safe for all our customers, so we are concerned by what appears in your video.
It’s an unfortunate situation, so feel free to reach out to us to let us know what happened so we can work to address it.
If possible, could you please provide us with your names, the departure and arrival cities, and the flight number/date? This would help us greatly to determine what/where this happened and how we can follow‐up with you.
While we work to rectify the situation, we would kindly ask that you consider taking this video down from your channel.
Thanks very much for your time,
Christopher Vary, American Airlines
As it turns out, American didn’t have to worry about “Spiders in my Dessert.” Here’s why, according to the presentation:
American believes its fast actions saved the day, in contrast with United’s reaction to the guitar video, which, it points out earlier in the presentation, United was slow to respond to.
The airline also got lucky. The aggrieved passenger used “bad tags” and couldn’t even spell the word “spider.”
Tim Smith, who works in American’s corporate communications department, and who delivered the presentation, adds some context:
This was part of a presentation I gave at the Airports Council International’s North American convention.
We quickly spotted this posting with our usual monitoring efforts. Since there were a number of unanswered questions as to exactly how this occurred (the video was of marginal quality), we messaged the person who posted it and asked him to contact us to discuss the situation further. The text of that initial message is on the slide.
The customer seemed impressed that we had reached out for him soon after his posting and the matter was quickly resolved long before it became something larger (though I don’t think anyone would say it was as “compelling” as the United guitar incident, which showed how quickly it grew to major proportions without any airline feedback in the early days of it).
Since this happened many months ago, I don’t think we would have a lot more to say about this.
But should American Airlines’ PR team be patting itself on the back for this?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Let’s be honest, here. Spiders in my cake isn’t as interesting as United Breaks Guitars — not by a long shot. Now, if the spider was a Tarantula and the passenger had added a soundtrack and some basic production values, then maybe there would have been more than the 127 views it currently has.
Also, American didn’t succeed in removing the video. Which means any blogger could pick up a story like this a few months later and cause a scene. Incidentally, I’m not referring to myself, here. I wouldn’t have gone near this video unless someone had sent me the presentation, in which American claims total social media victory.
My point is, it shouldn’t. It won one battle with the help of a sub-standard video and sloppy coding. But memories are long online, and it hasn’t won the war.
United doesn’t have to worry about any more PR damage from the guitar video. It has been more than responsive over the long term to this challenge.
But American still should have case of arachnophobia. Because this video could be online for a long, long time.
Update: On second thought, what could make this story more compelling? If this arachnid could sing, then we’d have a viral video …
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{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Who says airline food does not have any protien in it!!!
I will say, since we all know airlines do not provide thier own food, I was impressed the AA rep did not dime out the third party food vendor.
If I was AA, I wouldn’t be too concerned. Air travellers in the US have shown they have very short memories and will put up with almost any indignity for the cheapest fare. What’s an insect or two when you have $99 airfares? Even the much hated checked baggage fees and holiday travel fees haven’t really impacted the figures- except on the positive side for the balance sheet.
The other plus is that thanks to a 24hour news cycles, you may have a rough few days but something will distract the consumer in due course.
The only thing unusual for this is that the passengers weren’t charged an addition $3.95 for Arachnoid Processing.
I think a big reason that United Breaks Guitars went so viral was how it (hardy har har) struck a chord with people. I mean, who hasn’t had an airline mishandle their luggage? And who hasn’t dealt with the powerless CSR at baggage claim who has no clue where your lost bag is, when or if you’ll see it again, and can’t give you more than like $50 for your prized possessions?
Spider in the dessert, though? This just isn’t a compelling story, at all. I mean, what kind of person finds a spider in his dessert and, instead of just hitting his flight attendant call button and requesting a replacement, whips out his cellphone camera and posts to youtube?
So, no, I don’t think this unreasonable person’s youtube tantrum was ever going to be a PR liability for American Airlines.
yuk,any kind of insect in my food would make me ill. They should have received some compensation.
@barbie45 Spiders are not insects, so I guess you would have been OK in this instance.
Since so many airlines use the same food service vendors, this really isn’t even an AA issue. If anything, it just serves as a cautionary tale about eating airline food in general…and who really needs to be reminded of how horrid airline food is?
I would agree that AA is being a bit too self-congratulatory on this. I can’t imagine a single passenger would have changed their travel plans because of this video, even if the poster had managed to spell ’spider’ correctly.
It might make me look a little closer at my food, though. And in this case I have to agree with barbie: YUK!
I guess the moral of the story is that when an airline screws up, skip writing letters and start posting videos and images. On that note, I have a photo of a Delta gate in PVD on 10/19/09. On that date, the incoming equipment was changed and Delta, being the geniuses they are, couldn’t find someone to fly the new equipment, thus delaying all PVD passengers and screwing up connections.
ONE GATE AGENT stood there and tried to rebook/reroute people for two hours and not everyone was helped. Another agent appeared after about an hour, but she did not stay to assist. The line is of about 50 people just standing there with this one poor agent–some elderly–for at least two hours.
I need to post that photo. Delta needs egg of their face for that one.
Barbie, you think no compensation is due for a woman who spends over $1000 out of pocket due to no fault of her own, but the airlines should cough up for a spider that is the same size as the lint that comes off the airline blankets? Common sense is our friend.
Raven – post it! Now that’s the type of video that might have some impact. Nobody is going to change their travel plans due to a one-off incident of an arachnid-infested dessert that impacted one passenger. But a customer service failure at the gate – and one of such magnitude, impacting so many – can definitely sway travelers into choosing a different airline.
If shaming these airlines into providing adequate customer service is what it’s gonna take to get them to treat us like humans, then I say, go for it!
K, I never said she she not be compensated. My last post stated that. What I did mean is that she should not have received a full refund on her paid fare. And the more I think about it also compensation for any faxes or other expenses incurred in contacting Cheapowhatever. Also perhaps some sort of voucher of goodwill for the hassle . Travelocity and Expedia seem to do that. Lee Anne I agree that the food is pretty horrible. I am assuming tht it being AA she paid for her meal .If you found a hair in your airline food I am sure you would not be pleased. Well any foreign substance animal etc. yuk. It was the contractor who suppled AA. I am paying AA not the supplier.
barbie…I’m awfully reluctant to enter into any kind of discussion with you (I sure don’t want to get back to you jumping all over my occasional typos!) and I’m sorry that I mentioned that I agreed with you that it was “yuk,” if it’s going to start a back-and-forth again. The frequent readers of this forum would, I’m quite confident, prefer not to see THAT all over again.
But it does appear that you missed my point. In the interest of clarity, allow me to state that I certainly did not mean to imply that AA had no culpability in dishing out the disgusting dessert. And if she paid for it, she should certainly be reimbursed the cost of the spider-infested food. (As for further compensation, not sure I agree with you on that…but that’s a different topic.)
My point was simply that posting the spider-in-dessert video online simply isn’t going to have the same impact that other airline-critical videos, such as “United Breaks Guitars,” would have. In other words, people aren’t going to abandon AA because of one person’s yukky dessert. So AA’s patting themselves on the back for their rapid response and “handling” of the situation is rather disingenuous, as it’s likely there wasn’t a situation to be “handled” to begin with.
But let’s just leave it at that, shall we?
I HATE SPIDERS EWWWWWW!!!!!
I sincerely hope this is the only story of that I ever hear concerning bugs in food on planes…. eww eww eww
Yuk, Iagree.
if i had found a spider on my tray, flight attendants would have probably have had to tackle me in the aisle and subdue me with foreign substances, my phobia is that bad. of course, had that been the case, there would have been no talk of compensation, but there probably would have been talk about how much jail time i would get.
For those who are saying, “Well, airline food sucks anyway,” I think we need to make a distinction. There is a huge difference between a piece of cake being stale and/or not taste good as Grandma’s, and a piece of cake sitting on a plane long enough for a spider to not only crawl into it, but build a WEB. That, to me, means nothing regarding airline food and more about quality of service. Clearly, someone was not doing their job if a piece of food was sitting there long enough for that to happen. I mean, if they can’t even clean out the fridge once in awhile, why should I think that any of their services are up to par? Also, if a web was on it and a flight attendant didn’t realize, again – really? I’d hope that if I took a piece of food out to serve, I’d notice something fuzzy.
Anyway, I think this is an awesome discussion to have. I admit I also sort of smirked at the airline’s triumphant attitude. I really feel that technology is going to be a key part of calling all corporations and their policies on their bull. We’re in the information age, and they should be well aware that though they got lucky this time, there is PLENTY of material on flights every day for people to record and broadcast. The unfortunate part is that I think we’re so used to how awful an experience flying can be that we just sort of roll our eyes most of the time and deal.
As LeeAnne said, I think they got lucky in the sense that this happening probably wouldn’t deter most people from flying, and agree with Chris as well that a few bad tags and misspellings also added to their good luck. In addition, the spider is a weird, rare occurrence; however delays for false reasons (it’s always weather, hm?), fees for checked baggage that is then lost or damaged, long lines, ridiculous and ineffective security measures – those are all practically guaranteed. People have already been using their iPhones to check the weather at their destination after being told of weather-related delays. It’s only a matter of time before every small hiccup is recorded and, at the very least, the customer who posts it gets their rightful compensation. Maybe if it becomes common place to do so, companies will be more vigilant in creating a better experience.
Some of you are going bonkers over a little spider, have you not ever showered with one? I would be more worried about what was in that chocolate cake than with the spider!!!
@Christopher – LOVE your update! Thanks for the laugh! :-D
Sasha, good point who knows what else could have in the cake. Well if she paid for the cake hope she received a refund.