Combating negative blog posts and a negative incident: A case study of the “Mayday” incident between Juneyao Airlines and Qatar Airways

This case analysis examined the image repair strategies used by Juneyao Airlines after an anonymous blog posted information on a Juneyao flight's refusal to yield to a flight that issued an emergency call. This case revealed that addressing the credibility of the blog post and relying a third-party – Civil Aviation Administration of China – to combat the inaccuracies in the blog post was successful and that Juneyao's final announcement to take responsibility for the incident and to apologize was effective as well.

► This case analysis examined crisis communication by Juneyao Airlines. ► Juneyao flight refused to yield to Qatar Airways’ flight which declared fuel emergency. ► Juneyao addressed the credibility issue of the blog post. ► Juneyao relied on the Chinese aviation authority and the media to describe the event.