It has been a bad couple of weeks for Thai Airways International (THAI).
The national carrier suffered two mishaps over this period, with the first incident occurring on Aug 30 when an A380 with about 500 passengers, mostly from Bangkok, hit severe turbulence as it was descending into Hong Kong, injuring 390 passengers. The second took place on Sunday night when an Airbus A330-300 carrying more than 280 passengers from Guangzhou skidded off the runway while landing at Suvarnabhumi airport, injuring 14 passengers, mostly during the evacuation.
Although the accidents did not result in fatalities, and most of the injured passengers were quickly discharged after receiving first aid treatment, the incidents have affected the image of the airline. What has hurt THAI most is the way its management sought to cover up the Bangkok incident, reputedly to protect the image of the airline and Star Alliance of which THAI is a founding member.
Immediately after that accident, it was reported that workers on a crane blacked out the THAI logo on the tail and the body of the aircraft. A THAI official explained that the blurring of the logo was part of the Star Alliance "crisis communication" protocol to protect the image of the airline in question and the alliance. This was, however, denied by Star Alliance, rendering a slap to the face of the national flag carrier.
Unfortunately for THAI, the clumsy cover-up effort of the logo on the ill-fated aircraft created a major news story in the foreign media, from CNN and USA Today to The Guardian, and pushed the accident itself into the background.
Meanwhile, in the social media, the cover-up has gone viral, soliciting a steady stream of negative comments about the national flag carrier. One commentator jokingly suggested that THAI management should have hired David Copperfield to make the aircraft disappear altogether so that it would not pose an embarrassment to the airline and the Thai public.
THAI's clumsy cover-up exercise is not an isolated incident. As a matter of fact, this shameful practice seems to be the norm for unscrupulous politicians and their faithful bureaucrats to keep the public in the dark about things that they find too embarrassing to be disclosed publicly. The controversial rice-pledging scheme being a prime example.
Like some THAI executives who believe that they can protect the airline's image by merely blacking out the plane's logo so that nobody will know which airline was involved in the accident, senior officials at the Commerce Ministry, from the minister on down the line, believe that by not disclosing any details about the failed rice-pledging scheme they will get away with it with impunity and that the public will forever be left in the dark.
The government's initial handling of the 350-billion baht water management scheme is yet another project that it wants to quickly implement without public participation so that people remain unaware of the negative aspects. Thanks to die-hard environmental groups, however, implementation of the project is suspended pending its deliberation by the Administrative Court.
As for the cover-up incident at THAI, damage to its image from its poorly thought-out action appears to have surpassed that caused by the accident itself. This should serve as a reminder to the airline that transparency, accountability and good governance must always be its policy if it wishes once again to be regarded as one of the heavyweight airlines of the world.