OBLIGATORISK FORSIDE

Prescribed front page

HJEMMEOPGAVER, PROJEKTER, SYNOPSER M. MUNDTLIGT FORSVAR

Home Assignments, Project Reports, Synopses with oral defence
INSTITUT FOR ERHVERVSKOMMUNIKATION
Department of Business Communication

STUDIENUMMER
Student No.
NAVN:
Name

201402233

Ethenia Novianty Windaningrum

(If writing in groups, please state names of all

group members)

CPR-NR.:
Danish ID-Number

211188-4318

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EKSAMENSNR. (6 cifret nummer p

548871

studiekortet kaldet Kortnr. eller

eksamensnr.)

Student Exam No.:

(6 digit No at your Student ID-card called
either Kortnr. or Eksamensnr.)

HOLD NR.:
Class No.
Ex.: U02

H02

FAGETS NAVN:
Course/Exam Title

Corporate Communication in Change and Crisis Situations

VEJLEDER:
Name of Supervisor

ANTAL TYPEENHEDER I DIN

BESVARELSE
(ekskl. blanktegn):

Steen Michael Hejndorf

32,996

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Number of Characters in your

Assignment
(exclusive of blanks):

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Table of Contents
Image Repair Strategies of Norwegian Air Shuttle from Crisis Stages Perspective .................. 4
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 4
2. Literature Review
2.1.

Crisis Stages............................................................................................................. 5

2.2.
2.3.

Image Restoration Strategies.................................................................................. 6

Organization Reputation ......................................................................................... 8

3. Methodology
3.1.

Theoretical Research Design ................................................................................. 10

3.2.

Implemented Research Design ............................................................................. 11

4. Findings ...................................................................................................................... 12
5. Discussion .................................................................................................................. 18
6. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 21
References ................................................................................................................................. 23

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Image Repair Strategies of Norwegian Air Shuttle during 2015 Pilot Strike Crisis
from Crisis Stages Perspective
1. Introduction
Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA, or what public generally know as Norwegian, a third largest lowcost airline in Europe, and second largest airline in Scandinavia was facing a crisis in the
organization at the end of February until mid of March 2015.
Shortly, the crisis began from several pilots under Norwegian Air Norway (NAN) that went on
strike with the umbrella of Norwegian Pilot Union (NPU)/Parat. The strike happened after
Norwegian proposed several essential cost reductions, and after an attempt of mediation which
had an unsuccessful ending. It was known that NPU/Parat demanded a collective agreement
regarding companys production which meant that they wanted to be employed by the parent
company, instead of the subsidiaries (The Wall Street Journal 2015). The impact of the strike that
lasted for 11 days was the cancellation of all domestic flights in Scandinavia for 7 days
(accounted for almost 2,000 flights). The pilot strike caused the companys financial loss of 350
million NOK in terms of revenue and additional costs. Another effect from this strike was also
the declining number of passengers compared to the same month from the previous year,
which happened for the first time ever. During that period of time, Norwegian passengers had
to fly with the competitors flights. In this situation, Norwegian was really facing a crisis.
Karl Weick, an organization theorist defines a crisis as a critical and intense issue that
threatens the very existence of an organization in terms of its basic assumptions, values, and
ways of operating (Cornelissen, 2011).
In the literature found, the previous research from Coombs (2012) divided the crisis into
precrisis, crisis event, and post-crisis. His finding could also tell us that crisis is not something
that an organization could actually predict on how it should develop and end. Thus, from that
point of departure, I will divide the analysis of this paper later into beginning, middle, and after
the crisis. I aim to explain and to uncover the image repair strategies chosen by Norwegian
based on the crisis stages. The research question of this paper is:

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Which strategies of image repair did Norwegian Air Shuttle (NAS) apply during the pilot strike
crisis seeing from the stage / development of the crisis?
I believe that this research is relevant as in any crises there are possibilities if the crisis will get
worse, soon comes into a resolution, or even another crisis could hit.
This research will hopefully make a contribution to get the picture of how a big company,
particularly in the aviation industry handles a crisis to repair its image, based on the situation
that relatively keeps changing.
The implication of the study will address on the image repair strategies that the company could
possibly choose during and after a crisis to maintain its credibility based on how the crisis or
situation develops which are very much likely to be changed or even lead to inconsistency.
However, the research would have limitations as there might be no further data to prove and to
measure the effectiveness of image restoration strategies that Norwegian Air Shuttle
implemented during and after the crisis along with the reason of limitation of space in this
paper.

2. Literature Review
2.1.

Crisis Stages

There had been some arguments from some crisis management experts regarding the stages of
crisis. Richardson (1994) as in Coombs (2012) divides crisis into three stages, which are: (1)
precrisis or predisaster phase: the appearance of warning signs in which the risk is prevented or
being eliminated; (2) crisis impact or rescue phase: the crisis attacks then support and
resolution are provided for those responsible in it; and (3) recovery or demise phase: the
restoration of stakeholder confidence.
Following Richardson, Coombs (2012) divides crisis into three macrostages, which are: precrisis,
crisis event, and postcrisis. Each of the macrostages contains smaller sections or more specific
substages that can be named the micro level.

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Coombs (2012) mentions that the precrisis stage comprises all of the components or substages
of crisis preparation: (1) signal detection, (2) prevention, and (3) crisis preparation. Precrisis
stage is important because this is the stage in which the crisis managers in an organization be
prepared for a crisis. Preparation covers identifying crisis vulnerabilities, developing crisis
portfolios, building crisis teams, choosing spokespersons, and arranging the crisis
communication system.
While in the crisis stage, Coombs (2012) elaborates that it encompasses the actions taken to
shield the crisis when the crisis is visibly active. Within the crisis stage there are damage
confinement, crisis breakout, and the chronic phase. Two substages are involved in this phase:
(1) crisis recognition and (2) crisis containment. It is very important to communicate with the
stakeholders in this phase. Crisis recognition is an understanding of how an event is accepted as
a crisis, how to bring and tell about the crisis event to management, and the attempts to collect
information related to the crisis. Crisis containment centralizes on the response from
organization, including the initial response, communication and messages in relation with
reputational management, back-up plans, and follow-up consideration (Coombs, 2012).
In the postcrisis stage, according to Coombs (2012), it represents the period after the resolution
of the crisis, and it is the time for an organization to consider about the next plan. Even when
the crisis is considered to be over, however, there are still things to work on from the
perspective of the image and reputation of an organization in front of its stakeholders.
Postcrisis actions help to (a) make the organization better prepared for the next crisis, (b) make
sure stakeholders are left with a positive impression of the organizations crisis management
efforts, and (c) check to make sure that the crisis is truly over (Coombs, 2012).
From his explanation above, postcrisis stage is important as a reflexive learning for the
organization to deal with similar crisis in the future when the organization is positively sure that
the crisis is over and the stakeholders have been carefully taken care in the best possible way.

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CC in Change and Crisis Situations Fall Exam

Image Restoration Strategy

For this paper, the researcher will focus on Benoits approach, because his theory is believed to
be the actual contribution of this paper, particularly in image restoration strategy that the
company implemented during and after the crisis. Benoit (1997) mentions that the theory of
image restoration discourse focuses on message options instead of either how to describe the
stages in a crisis or the situation categories when the crisis happens. To put into a more
practical definition, it is about what may a corporation say when there is a crisis happening in
it?
There are some situations when organizations dive into image restoration discourse as below:
1) When there is an offensive action; 2) when perceptions are believed to be more
important than the actual responsibility; and 3) when someone is delegated to be
responsible for it (Benoit, 1997).
Table 2.1. that is summed up (the name or description of strategies are copied word by word
from Benoit (1997) ) below defines and distinguishes the strategies employed for image
restoration, with a possibility of having some or multiple combination.

1. Denial of wrongdoing

2. Evasion of responsibility

3. Reduce offensiveness:

Shift the blame (act did by another)

Simple denial (did not do the act)

Accident (act was a mishap)

Provocation (responded to act of another)

Good intentions (meant well in act)

Defeasibility (lack of information or ability)

Minimization (lessen negative information)

Bolstering (emphasize positive traits)

Differentiation (differentiating the deed from more

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displeasing deeds)

Attack accuser (reduce credibility of accuser)

Transcendence (find positive context in order to

advocate action)

Offer compensation

4. Corrective action

Commitment to fix the problem

5. Mortification

Confess, ask for forgiveness , apologize

Table 2.1. Image Restoration Strategies according to Benoit

Benoit (1997) also adds some suggestions to make image repair discourse in an organization
become effective. First, Benoit (1997) suggests for an organization to understand persuasion in
general; because he believes that image restoration is also a form of persuasive action. Second,
Benoit (1997) suggests that the company or organization who is in fault position should admit
what they did or what happened immediately and when there is a crisis, they must decide
which one is more important, either restoring their image or avoiding litigation. Benoit (1997)
believes that the act of shifting the blame offensively to another party will not be a good
solution. If there is a crisis happening, instead, he suggests that a firm could state if it is
something beyond their control, so it could lessen their responsibility and help to repair its
image.
Third, Benoit (1997) believes that it is very important for an organization to report or state that
it has a plan to correct the problem or to prevent it for recurrence. Even though audiences are
still thinking whom to blame, they would feel more secure when they hear the plans or steps
that the firm will take to correct the problem or simply to avoid further problems.
Fourth, Benoit (1997) adds that when a firm is minimizing the problem, or pretending that the
problem is trivia stuff while the truth is that this is something very serious, this action cannot be

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guaranteed to improve the firms image. At the end when the audiences know that this is a
serious problem, for instance, it may create a backlash.
Fifth, Benoit (1997) explains that a firm could do multiple strategies to restore its image. A firm,
for example, could use bolstering, by saying the positive efforts that the company has done and
do corrective action to fix the problem.
At last, Benoit (1997) argues that there is a limitation in the power of persuasion. When there is
a big crisis hits an organization, that involves many stakeholders and damages the nature, for
example, there is nothing much that the organization could do to restore its image, maybe they
could just wait some time until the stakeholders or public will forget about the incident.

2.3.

Organization Reputation

How do we define reputation in an organizational level? Is there any correlation between image
and reputation? Earlier Dowling (1996) in Van Riel and Fombrun (2007) describes reputation as
the set of meanings by which a company is known and through which people describe,
remember, and relate to it. It is the net result of the interaction of a persons beliefs, ideas,
feelings, and impressions about the company. A company will not have a reputation people
hold reputations of the company.
Fombrun (1996) in Van Riel and Fombrun (2007) define corporate reputation as a social
construction from multi stakeholders which is extracted from strategic communications
developed by an organization and how the analysts and the media refract it. Fombrun (1996) in
Riel and Fombrun (2007) add that there is interplay between reputation and image, while the
reputation itself is composed by social image, financial image, product image, and recruitment
image. Van Riel and Fombrun (2007) define reputations as the overall assessments of a
company or an organization by its stakeholders. These consist of perceptions by the
stakeholders about the ability of an organization to fulfill what they are expecting. In any given
situation, because organization reputation from how stakeholders perceive the company is
important, then reputation management is worth considering.

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3. Methodology
The researcher considers that the topic of the research is within a broad range and the
researcher also wants to concentrate on the emergent new discovery, so grounded theory was
taken into consideration to be the best one to cope with the analysis of the research. The
research combines both deductive and inductive processes by using and analyzing the data
from the press releases without any theoretical frameworks as well as hypothesis, and later
when it comes to generate and elaborate categories, it will be using relevant theories to inform
the study in the discussion part. From an ontology perspective, the research is in social
constructionism as the bases are maintaining reputation and doing image repair in which social
interaction will have a role to re-produce and re-shape them. While from epistemology, the
study is interpretivism, where it depends on how the researcher sees the world from the
linguistic section in the data (press releases and online news articles) and there are multiple
realities and constructions from phenomena found in the data.
3.1. Theoretical Research Design
Grounded theory is an open form of research and a reflexive one where there is an interactive
as well as a cyclical process of data collection, followed by analysis from the data, the
development stage of concepts, completed with literature review (Daymon and Holloway,
2011:130). Goulding (2002:46) mentions that although there are some versions and approaches
of grounded theory, there are also some constant criteria in it, such as: constant comparison of
data to develop concepts and categories; the gradually abstraction of data from the descriptive
level to higher order theoretical categories, or one all-encompassing supreme category that
forms the basis for the explanation.
While Glaser and Strauss (1967) as in Daymon and Holloway (2011:131) mentions that the
literature is supposed to have a function as a complement of the study, but probably it will be
elaborated in parallel with data analysis in details as well as to be paralleled in the process of
constructing and putting it up into the findings.
The final outcomes of grounded theory, according to Bryman (2012:570) are: concepts, theory,
categories, hypotheses, and properties.
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3.2. Implemented Research Design

In the study, researcher conducted the research in a step-by-step procedure, as below:

Constructed and generated themes and categories which are based on the research
question and literature reviews.

Collected the data from press releases and news articles regarding Norwegian pilot
strikes in Scandinavia.
The press releases were taken from Norwegians official website from February 28 th
until April 10th, 2015.

First categorization was made and elaborated with open coding that separated and
broke down the data into some parts and named them with labels. In this step, no
literature was being used so that there will be no biased view in analyzing the press
releases.

Figure 3.1. Example of labeling from press release

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Developed further categorization which functioned as a further interpretation displaying

categories and sub-categories. In this part, the researcher made constant comparison.
Constant comparison is a process of keeping data and its conceptualization in a close
connection (Bryman, 2012:568). In developing further categorization, the researcher
also connected it with relevant literature research. At the final step, a core category was
carried out and a core category connected sub-categories in the different levels. A core
category is the central issue or focus around which all other categories are integrated
(Bryman, 2012:569).

4. Findings
The core category image repair is an umbrella for sub-categories image repair strategies,
image/reputation management, and construct credibility. In addition, there are two metacategories, which are linguistic features and setting of the context. Those two metacategories will later be elaborated with the core-category. From the meta-categories, the
researcher will use them to uncover further about the case by analyzing how the press releases
portray the pilot strike crisis through the analysis of the linguistic and the information which
were released by the company and by analyzing some news articles from several sources of
online media. The sub-category image/reputation management is also divided into two small
sub-categories, which are: handling responsibility and stakeholders statement/impression.

4.1. Image repair strategies (Benoit)

As this research would like to investigate which image repair strategies that the company
(Norwegian Air Shuttle or NAS) applied during the crisis, this research will analyze the strategies
taken by Norwegian Air Norway or Norwegian Air Shuttle (NAS) to maintain its image by seeing
from the data (press releases and online news articles) which further had been translated into
final categorization in the coding process. The analysis was carried out using image restoration
strategies from Benoit (1997) and dividing the crisis into macrostages, which are: precrisis, crisis

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event, and postcrisis based on Coombs (2012) or from the data found into beginning, middle,
and end stage as the researcher sees both theories to be very relevant with the purpose of this
paper.

Precrisis
Although precrisis is seen as an important macrostage in the image restoration strategies,
however, in this case from the press releases and news articles found there was no coverage
describing on how NAS prevented and prepared for the upcoming issues, such as structuring
communication system, building crisis team or developing crisis port folios.

Crisis Event: Crisis Recognition (Beginning)

In the early step of image repair, the crisis was already there seeing from the first press release,
that there was a pilot strike. However, there was still no flight cancelation happened during
that period, so the researcher sees that this situation belongs to the crisis event, but in the
microstage of crisis recognition in which the warning signs were detected. To resolve that issue,
NAS tried to do mortification by apologizing to passengers for the situation happened. First,
that it was not possible to reach an agreement in the mediation between Norwegian Air
Norway (NAN) and NPU/Parat (press release found in Appendix 1 file in the labeling- line 4-6).
Second, for the uncertainty situation due to the pilot strike (line 19). Besides mortification, NAS
also did corrective action, which were trying to prevent the problem to get further, such as
avoided the strike (l.20), did everything that they can to ensure that all the passengers were
being best taken care according to EU regulations (l.22-23) and (l.32-33), had a goal to still
operate all flights on Saturday and Sunday as planned (l.6-7) and (l.25) and made pilots on
standby to ensure that only limited number of passengers were affected by the pilot strike
(l.27-28).
Another image repair that NAS did in the early step was reducing offensiveness by bolstering or
stressing the good traits they did. We could see in (l. 20-22) that NAS stressed out their positive

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sides that they would like to secure everyones jobs and secure the company in the future. In
the first press release, NAS also did evasion of responsibility by doing provocation to
NPU/Parat. NAS mentioned that NPU/Parat did not meet the criteria of a sustainable company
that NAS proposed (l.11) and that the demands that Parat had were conflicted with the
collective agreement (l.11-12). Even NAS mentioned in the press release that Parat had a goal
to control the company and company production, reached a collective agreement for a
company that they were not employed by, and that this collective agreement should also apply
outside Norway (l.12-15). NAS also mentioned that NPU/Parat demanded for seniority list for
all pilots (1.15-16).

Crisis Event: Crisis Containment (Middle)

According to Coombs (2012), crisis containment involves communication and messages in
relation with reputational management from the organization side. We could see that after
saying that NAS had a goal to still operate the flights on Saturday and Sunday as planned, the
following press release mentioned that all the domestic flights in Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden,
and Denmark) and all the flights between Scandinavian cities were cancelled and of course as a
result there were passengers who became victims of these accidents. NAS did some image
repair strategies for this flight cancellations issue, and the first image repair strategy they did
was reducing offensiveness by bolstering. They stressed out the good effort that the company
did by finding a solution to prevent more affected passengers through constructive talk with
Parat (l.38-43). Further than that, as reported by the media (The Local Denmark), NAS also did
bolstering by many attempts to engage in constructive discussion to prevent the strike gets
harder, although at the end dialogue was not possible to be conducted (l. 378-379). Another
bolstering strategy was showed when Norwegian CEO mentioned that he did not mind
upsetting unions by hiring new planes to replace his own grounded fleet if it meant fewer
flights being cancelled (l.450-452). Another media (Reuters) reported a statement from NAS
that showed another bolstering strategy, said that NAS would create three new subsidiaries for
its pilots in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden in a bid to end this strike (l.478-480). Similar news
was also reported by Bloomberg that Norwegian Air said yesterday that it plans to establish
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new divisions for pilots in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and employees will transfer to the
companies in their respective countries with the existing tariff agreements, working conditions
and benefits. In addition, The Local Denmark wrote that Europes third-biggest budget airline
said it has, among other concessions, offered job guarantees to all of the companys 700 pilots
in Scandinavia, which can be seen as another bolstering strategy.
After reducing offensiveness, NAS did mortification by apologizing to passengers who were
affected by the flight cancellations (l. 47). NAS also did corrective action by mentioning that
they would take care the passengers in the best way (l. 48-49), (l. 139), (l. 162-163), (l. 219-220),
(l. 243-244), and (l. 265-266) and would give notification via SMS to the passengers who had
registered their numbers and were affected by these cancellations (l. 50-51), (l. 82-83), (l. 133134), (l. 156-157), (l.214-215), (l. 238-239), and (l. 260-261). After some discussion with Parat
during the crisis, through the press releases, again NAS did bolstering. This could be seen from
(l. 104-105) which NAS mentioned if the management had a desire to give the pilots in Norway,
Denmark, and Sweden a real opportunity and that NAS had a goal to reach a solution together
with NPU and Parat (l. 115).
At the middle part of the crisis, NAS did mortification to the passengers as the strike still
continued (l. 177), (l. 219), (l. 243), and (l. 265). And NAS also chose corrective action for the
image repair by mentioning that the company had tried so hard to end the strike by providing
assurances to Parat for the key points (l. 180-182). In (l. 187-201), NAS presented the offers for
the pilots in Norwegian Air Norway as a final offer and this also shown corrective action that
NAS did during the crisis. Evasion of responsibility or provocation strategy was also done by
NAS. As reported by Bloomberg, NAS said that The Pilots' Union/Parat, had declined to meet a
deadline set by the airline to resume talks on Thursday and this led to an escalation of the
dispute as Norwegian said it would create three new subsidiaries for its pilots in Norway,
Sweden and Denmark (l.511-513).

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Postcrisis (End)
Postcrisis macrostage, according to Coombs (2012) is a stage to ensure that the crisis is over
and to ensure that the stakeholders are left with positive impression regarding organizations
crisis management efforts.
After the crisis was finally over, on March 10th, 2015, the press release showed that NAS
constructed or repaired its image by doing reducing offensiveness through bolstering. NAS
stressed out their positive traits through its press release that NAS had gone a great length to
resolve the issue and to reach an agreement with NPU which took 11 days (l. 274-275). NAS
also informed that the new collective agreement had established a contributory pension for the
pilots, a reduced Loss of License insurance, as well as a more flexible work schedule. Further
than that, NAS chose another bolstering strategy by mentioning that The Scandinavian pilots
collective agreement has some of the best terms in the industry (l. 288-289). Media (The Local
Norway) wrote regarding NAS statement after the pilot strike ended that also showed
bolstering strategy, We have given job security for three years. We have a lot of new planes on
the way, and they need the pilots we have. We couldnt provide a collective agreement with
the parent company, and therefore sought a solution that worked for everyone. (l. 657-660).
The superlative word that was used also shown that NAS did bolstering by mentioning that the
Norwegian Group has given an extraordinary guarantee of employment for all the pilots
employed in Scandinavia. After the crisis, Norwegian CEO Bjrn Kjos showed bolstering in the
name of company by mentioning that the company continued to attract many new customers
in Europe and America even when the crisis hit (l. 331- 332).
Norwegian CEO through his personal statement also showed mortification by apologized to the
passengers about this crisis. I am terribly sorry for the problems our passengers have
experienced as a result of the pilot strike, (l. 277-279).

4.2. Reputation Management

Further than doing some of the image repair strategies, NAS also built its reputation in front of
the stakeholders through handling responsibility or showing that the company took immediate
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steps when the crisis happened. This could be seen from (l. 39-41) which said Norwegians
management has been trying to get a solution with Norwegian Pilot Union (NPU) and the union
Parat to prevent that even more passengers are affected and (l. 42-43) which said repeated
attempts by Norwegian's management to bring about constructive talks to avoid escalation of
the strike.
Close to the seventh day of the strike, NAS also showed that they were trying to be responsible
to end this strike by providing assurance to the pilots in Scandinavia that can be seen from (l.
104-106), The management also has a clear desire to give the pilots in Norway, Sweden and
Denmark a real opportunity to personally control their own professional future within the
company. When the crisis happened, NAS also showed their intention to be responsible to the
passengers by saying Norwegian will do everything possible to ensure that flights between
other parts of Europe will operate normal (l. 130-131), (l. 153-154), (l. 211-212) and (l. 235236) to make sure that this pilot strike did not have further impacts to other passengers
outside Scandinavia. The usage of words everything possible showed that NAS tried their
best to be responsible.
And when the crisis ended, through its press release, NAS showed that through 11 days of the
strike that the company was responsible in handling the issue Norwegian has gone to great
lengths to reach an agreement to resolve the dispute, which has now lasted for 11 days. (l.
274-276). They also showed their responsibility to the pilots after the crisis by mentioning
With the new collective agreement, the company has established a contributory pension
(innskuddspensjon) for the pilots, a reduced Loss of License insurance, as well as a more flexible
work schedule. (l. 285-287).

4.3.

Construct Credibility

Image repair / restoration strategies and reputation management are the primary components
of image repair when there is a crisis. However, an organization also needs to construct its
credibility to make sure that the image reputation meets a success. NAS constructed its
credibility, showed that it was a reliable airline by mentioning in its press release that they tried
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to reach external organization or built collaboration with different organization. In the press
release on March 5th 2015, NAS wrote what they aimed to do for the negotiation with
NPU/Parat during the strike, Norwegian Air Norways negotiators wanted to bring Norways
national mediator, Nils Dalseide, who was ready to step in (l. 107-109). Norways national
mediator, Nils Dalseide was the one outside the company that they tried to approach for
collaboration to end this strike and to avoid this crisis went into further. It showed that NAS
went the extra miles as a reliable/credible company that is really keen to solve the crisis.

5. Discussion
In this paper the researcher would like to uncover the strategies of image repair that NAS
applied based on the stages of the crisis. Besides that, it is also good to check the consistency of
NAS strategies and the reputation management aspect from the stakeholders. In general, NAS
did adaptive strategies to repair its image during the crisis and after the crisis besides being
transparent to the stakeholders, although sometimes they applied provocative strategy in a
superlative way. In its first press release, it could be seen that somehow NAS had a preparation
for the crisis when they mentioned that Pilots from the administration and pilots from our
subsidiaries are on standby to ensure that only a limited number of passengers are affected
(l.26-28), although we could not find the image repair strategies that NAS applied at the
precrisis stage that is most possibly because it was the first pilot strike the company
experienced or handled. Even though at the end when the crisis continued it inflicted all the
flights in Scandinavia to be cancelled, the researcher considers that it was a good strategy when
NAS made a statement in the early stage of the crisis if they had a corrective plan in the
purpose to build up its credibility in front of the public and stakeholders. In other words, it
shows that when there is a crisis, they are responsible and they have taken the steps to solve
the problem or in other words give assurance to the passengers at the very beginning when the
strike happened.
The researcher sees that during the crisis, in most of the strategies that NAS chose to repair its
image was by doing corrective action. The company chose this strategy because the crisis that
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happened had a big impact and it might bring less trust in the passengers or even in the
publics side. In aviation industry, one flight cancellation could even result a big crisis if the
passengers are very disappointed and bring this case into public as a drama. Knowing that when
tens of thousands passengers would be affected from many flight cancellations in Scandinavia,
of course NAS did corrective action by stating that they had a plan to solve the problem or tried
to prevent it to get worse, otherwise the passengers would lose trust in the company and go to
the other airlines. What NAS did was following one of the key points that Benoit (1997)
mentioned for a success in image repair strategies, which is stating the plan for the crisis.
Another repair strategy that NAS chose was mortification or asking for apology. The company
realized that the passengers who were affected by the flight cancellations or even at the
beginning of the crisis before knowing that there will be flight cancellations might predict that
there would be an impact from pilot strike which was flight cancellations, would feel
disappointed, angry, frustrated, hopeless, or even losing trust over the company. So, the
company apologized for the situation happened that there were passengers feeling uncertain at
the beginning of the crisis and after a while, unfortunately, they had their flights cancelled by
the incident.
From the linguistic features, NAS expressed emotions by mentioning some statements, for
example like Norwegian apologized to everyone (l.177) and after the crisis, the Norwegian
CEO said I am terribly sorry for the problems our passengers have experienced as a result of
the pilot strike (l. 277-279). The researcher thinks that NAS did the correct thing by admitting
what happened, and for not trying to minimize the conflict by pretending if the issue was a
trivia one. What NAS did was also one of the key things that Benoit (1997) suggested for a
success in doing image repair strategies. NAS was being honest by mentioning the estimation
number of passengers who will be affected by the flight cancellations and which flights
cancelled and which ones that still operated as normal. It is very important in the
transportation industry where the customers are the passengers to be very honest about which
routes that still operate and which routes that are affected by the incident, and what the plans
are made for the passengers. Otherwise, the truth will reveal itself and it will just create further
crisis by a backlash and loss of trust to the company.
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NAS also did reducing offensiveness from the crisis by bolstering or stressing the positive efforts
that the company had tried, for instance that they had tried to bring some good offers to NAN
pilots and that they had gone a great length of effort to end the strike. The researcher sees that
there was a linguistic feature used here, that was by using superlative words, for example like
strong wish (l. 179-180) and after the crisis ended they stated . to great lengths to
reach an agreement to resolve (l. 274-275). The researcher considers that bolstering could
be a good option to show that the company did positive things already during the crisis, in a
hope that the audiences and stakeholders could get their emotions more calm as well as to
build trust over the company.
However, NAS also chose an image repair strategy that was evasion of responsibility,
specifically provocation at the beginning of the crisis and also at the middle of the crisis by
showing what NPU/Parat had done or Parats attitude that was the root of this crisis. When
NAS mentioned in the press release NPUs goal has been to control the company and the
companys production, the researcher perceives that NAS made it into superlative tone
because logically, when NPU just wanted a secure position in the company and pension that
might impact a collective agreement list, it didnt always mean that they had a goal to control
the company. It might be that NAS had a panic attack during the time and wanted to gain trust
and credibility from the public during the crisis. As a result, they put NPU as the one who
created the crisis, as NAS could not agree with what NPU asked to the company NAS wrote
about NPU like this, they had demands that conflicted with the collective agreement signed in
2013 (l. 11-12). It is believed that provocation was not the best solution for image restoration
in the company because at the end customers just wanted the company to be responsible in
handling the issue. However, it was acceptable if the company mentioned what the cause of
the strike was in honest explanation without exaggerating what the other party (NPU) did so
public would know the real background of the crisis and hopefully could understand the
situation and not losing trust in the company.
Regarding the reputation of the company on how the stakeholders feel and give impression to
the company during the crisis, from the data gathered it comprised the statements from media,
Norwegian Pilot Union/Parat, the national mediator, and also analysts. At the beginning, the
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leader of Parat believed that Norwegian CEO wanted to get rid of them and some tricky terms
and conditions of hiring the pilots (l.344-345). This belief may actually lead to a rejection for the
plans set up by NAS to create three new subsidiaries (l.584-585). Although at the beginning,
they seemed to be resistant, in the next days after some mediation, they still want to hear and
discuss about future agreement with NAS (l.515-516), and nearing resolution they wanted to
find resolutions for both parties that made the negotiation became easier (l.609-610). After
they met an agreement, Halvor Vatnar, leader of the Norwegian Pilots' Union said the company
had come some way to giving the unions the agreement they wanted, giving all pilots in
Scandinavia the same links to the parent company, equal agreements, and common career
opportunities (l.648-654). "We have achieved a clear linkage to the parent company Norwegian
Air Shuttle in terms of legal and financial guarantees, regardless of which subsidiary pilots are
employed by," Vatnar said.
While according to the national mediator, both parties in this dispute were being stubborn by a
resistance to change anything from their previous goals, beliefs, and positions (l.561-562). And
according to Sydbank analyst, Jacob Pedersen, NAS CEO was a clever man who found a pattern
that a success airline should not let their employees to gain some influences (l.495-496). In
other words, he might assume that NAS CEO was planning a sly tactic.
From the online media coverage that comprised many opinions and perspectives from different
stakeholders, it might have affected the feelings of public and passengers during the crisis
about NAS, which at the end will shape the company reputation. However, since the crisis was
handled in a quite prompt response and not being too long, the crisis was finally over. Besides,
NAS applied image repair strategies that were quite consistent during and after the crisis in a
hope to gain its image and reputation back.

6. Conclusion
At the end, could we say that image repair strategies NAS applied were effective and
consistent? The effectiveness question is difficult to answer, since from the press releases and
news articles gathered the researcher could not find any data mentioning the number of
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passengers that were satisfied with what NAS did to solve the crisis, and in another side, there
were no reliable data mentioning about how many passengers who would probably never use
Norwegians service again and switch to the other airline forever after the crisis. As a result, the
researcher could not measure the effectiveness of the image repair strategies NAS had done.
However, NAS had tried to implement multiple strategies of image restoration according to
Benoit (1997) to build its credibility that generally in a consistent way and adapted the
strategies to the context and development of the crisis, although they did not always stick to a
single strategy. Another plus point was that they were also being honest. Thus, the researcher
would conclude that NAS did quite a good job in solving the crisis to repair its image from the
beginning, middle, and postcrisis. The best part was the corrective action NAS implemented to
solve the problem immediately and explicitly stated their plans on how they thought of this
problem would be solved since the very first beginning. Publics assurance and stakeholders
trust over the company are considered to be very crucial for companys image and reputation,
even since the crisis hits at the early signs, the researcher would say.

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