Burson-Marsteller is aiding client Lufthansa after the deadly French Alps crash by its budget airline Germanwings.
B-M has worked with Lufthansa since 2006 and renewed its European corporate communications pact for three years in 2014. Karl-Heinz Heuser heads the firm’s German operations.
All 150 passengers and crew aboard the Germanwings A320 from Barcelona to Duesseldorf were killed in the mountain crash north of Nice, France.
The airline initially said the crash appeared to be an accident, but the BBC, citing French prosecutors with information from the flight data recorder, reported March 25 that the co-pilot of the flight "wanted to 'destroy the plane' ... and took sole control of plane and intentionally started its descent", adding "the pilot had just left the cockpit and was locked out."
Germanwings and Lufthansa expressed "our deepest regret" in announcing the disaster March 24, adding that the airlines were “deeply shocked and saddened by these events.”
The airlines acknowledged March 24 that some crew members decided not to operate aircraft in the aftermath of the accident, leading to cancellations, although the company resumed a normal schedule the next day despite some crews backing out because of “sorrow and emotional distress.”
There’s a fine line between newsjacking and taking advantage, aka ambulance chasing. Our job as PR professionals is to tread it carefully.
PR firms need to be mindful of ways their work product may be protected by the attorney-client privilege whenever working with a client’s internal legal team or its external legal counsel.
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