Virtual public relations may be defined as the utilization of news or print media to publicize the positive image of our company and its product and services along with its business operations methodology; it also includes creating and developing good relationships with local media representatives, customers and community.
History:
Emirates Airlines commenced its business operations in the year 1985, with the financial resources of $10 million and machinery resources of 2 rented aircraft. The formation of a company was the response of Gulf Air towards its cut back business operations. Its maiden flight commenced towards Karachi on 25th October 1985. Emirates Airlines created a remarkable record by earning maximum profit within 9 months of its business operations. New destinations have been supplemented by Emirates which includes Bombay, Cairo, Colombo, and Dhaka. After the end of two years it enhanced its destination to Europe commencing with London. Apart from them enormous destinations have been added by Emirates in rapid progression.
Mission and Vision:
Emirates’ Mission includes sustaining and maintaining the consistent growth of its business with a growth rate of 20% in the upcoming years.
The Vision of Emirates is to create and sustain the market leadership which seems ahead of conservative track.
Brief Description of Emirates Airlines:
Emirates Airlines is the part of the Emirates Group, a leading group of UAE having its global presence in worldwide markets with an impressive brand image in the field of travel and tourism and aviation. The hub of Emirates Airlines is situated at the International Airport in Dubai and its group is possessed by the Government of Dubai. It is operated as the national airlines of Dubai and UAE. It has 2400 passenger flights per week providing services to the worldwide passenger to reach their destination. It is the top most airlines of the Middle East, winning maximum awards for its augmented business operations and services.
Figure : Organizational Structure of Emirates Airlines:
Media Relations of Emirates Airlines:
Media relations helped a lot to keep the Emirates Airlines in the world’s media headlines. During the last year, the company has invested more than US$ 187.7 million for over 40600 media articles which is equivalent to the value invested for the advertisements. With the help of such investment, the company approached a great customer reach and media analysis shows that customer coverage gives an overwhelming and positive response. Emirates Airlines first A380 aircraft have grabbed the great media attention globally even though the Emirates airline is not the first airline to launch such aircraft.
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The renounce ceremony in Hamburg witnessed more than 800 journalists and celebrities. Through this ceremony, the media relations of the Emirates Airlines have received the global reach through interviews with the higher authorities of the company and the key aviation writers who have experienced the product and services of such new and innovative aircraft. During the six month campaign of such launch and renouncement, the company has received more than 1000 media requests to provide the information and images of the newly innovative product. Due to these strong media relations of the company, more than 1000 aviation and lifestyle writers have experienced the services of the newly launched product and provide their positive feedback by awarding it as a next generation aviation technology and travel comforts through such media only which ultimately affect the global customer reach and helps to attract more and more potential customers.
The opening of new Emirates terminal 3 at the Dubai International Airport was spread among the advisories and travelers through these strong media relations of the company. Media relations emphasized various aspects of the new terminal in order to enhance the features to the customers which attracted a vast potential customer range towards the products and services of the company. In order to strengthen the Media Relations, the company organizes media tours, video recording and photography opportunities for various journalists in every six months. Besides the main news of the company, the global media relations also provides the media coverage to the launch of various other destinations of the company in all over the global market which attracts the potential customers towards the five star best airlines of the world.
Media relations also support various other differentiated products of the company such as luxury hotels through public relations strategy and they also provide media support for facilitating its portfolio to other hotels. The internal awareness team of the company has launched a new interactive group world which keeps watch over the internal campaigns through integrating all the channels of communication including media relations which provides strength to the company to enhance the customer reach.
Community Relations of Emirates Airlines:
Community relations include the social responsibility of the company towards the stakeholders which affects the success of the company a lot. With the advent of liberalization of traffic rights, the Emirates Airlines have developed a new department of public affairs and government engagements. The department of public affairs launches a campaign in order to help the company in lowering down the air passenger duty by the UK government. It had launched a new publication which shares the airline industry news and related international policy news. This feature is also added to the website of the company. Industry affairs are trying its level best to represent the Emirates airlines at the IATA agency and services conference in relation to both the passengers and the cargo operations.
The Company also has joined the Billing and Settlement Plans with 99 other countries. The industry affairs initiate the web sales through the industrial banks facilitated by the travel agents and thus adopt the IATA resolution changes. The environmental affairs launch various environmental policies which tend to make the Emirates Airlines as the most Eco friendly airlines of the world. The ever largest single recycling program is the part of such projects which tends to collect thousands tones of paper, cardboard, plastic and aluminum from the various buildings concerned with the company.
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Consumer Relations of Emirates Airlines:
Consumer relations are very essential for any company in order to satisfy them with the product and services through resolution of their problems and complaints and make them the loyal customer for the future course of time. For enhancing the consumer relations, Emirates Airlines have separate Customer Affairs and Service Audit (CASA) centers at various locations of each destination which understand and resolves customer problems and complaints. Last year, CASA continued to be decentralized by opening a new office in Johannesburg, Osaka, Hong Kong, and Tehran which adds the strong network to the existing CASA centers at UK/Europe, America, Australia, New Zealand and India.
The development of such network helped the company in handling the complaints of the customers as it has shown 50 percent improvement in solving out such problems. This center helps the customers to be dealt with concern at the local level itself and their problems get solved more effectively than earlier. Due to this service improvement in handling problems, 66 % reduction in Baggage Claim Processing has been observed. The company is planning to develop the training and development plan for the CASA employees so as to improve their skills in handling the customer problems more efficiently and effectively. The Knowledge Portal will support such plan in order to share the related data and information. CASA shows an empathetic, caring and personalized behavior towards solving the customer problems and complaints and providing full support to the customers to satisfy their expected standards and quality to make them loyal customer for the products and services of the company.
In order to sustain the growth, quality standards and reputation of the company, the Service Audit Team continuously controls and monitors the standards of products and services. The Mystery Shopper team of the company monitors and evaluates the contribution of the staff towards maintaining the expectations of the customers. Service Audit evaluates all the customer services regularly in order to deal with the customers more effectively. These services involve service delivery, airport services, skywards, and the call centers operated worldwide to solve the customer problems.
Discussion:
Though the public relations of Emirates Airlines impact a lot on the international media and the potential customers yet the company PR need to adopt various changes as per the requirement of competitive environment in order to take the full competitive advantage of the global international market. Though the company has the strong media relations which provide a great exposure to every event held in the company and the company also provides great opportunities of news and events to the media yet there are various changes which are yet to be implemented. These changes involve the use of social media for strengthening the media relations of the company. Now a day most of the companies are using social media such as Facebook, twitter, MySpace and various other social networking sites in order to have great exposure from the customers and the media.
The same development is applied to the customer handling departments, to provide ease to the customers for communicating their problems and complaints, most of the companies are now taking help of social networking sites and the internet which is the quick and easy means of communication nowadays. The community relationships such as social events and other environmental initiatives are now being spread and run through the social networking sites by various companies. In this relation the Emirates Airlines are lacking as it is not using the easiest and the renowned means of public relations and communication. Though the company is developing various kiosks to handle the customer requests, problems and complaints, though it is taking various environmental and industry affairs initiatives, though it is providing various opportunities of media exposure, yet it needs to use the social networking sites as the strongest and prominent means of public relations in order to strengthen the organization efficiently and effectively.
In relation to customer problem and complaints handling, the initiative of the company to run CASA ad providing training to the employees to solve the problems and complaints of customer effectively is really appreciable as compared to the other companies of the same industry. The media opportunities and other community development initiatives of the company are remarkable and appreciable in relation to fulfilling the corporate social responsibility.
Conclusion:
Public Relations play a very prominent role in maintaining good rapport with the customers, media and community. Public relation helps in spreading information regarding the company to the target group of customers. It serves as the most cost effective tools of promotion which helps with the publicity of the company’s products and services. The information publicizes through public relation are comparatively effective on a long term basis and on the large geographical areas in comparison to other promotional tools and techniques. Emirates’ Mission includes sustaining and maintaining the consistent growth of its business with a growth rate of 20% in the upcoming years.
The Vision of Emirates is to create and sustain the market leadership which seems ahead of conservative track. The Public Relation of Emirates Airlines with the customers, media and community prove to be very helpful in the accomplishment of its aforementioned mission and vision and it is also the secret behind its success and market dominance in UAE. In relation to Public relations department, the company is doing well and most of its initiative is appreciable yet there are various changes and updating as per the competitive environment which are needed to be adopted and applied in order to have pace with the changing business environment.
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