P&O Aurora - Handling the Media

November 2003

- a first hand account from one of our Docleaf Associates, Jim Preen, a journalist who met the boat on its arrival in Southampton.

Introduction
For our overseas readers, first some background: the P&O super-liner, the Aurora triggered a diplomatic incident recently when it docked at Gibraltar. The ship had been turned away from Athens because more then 500 of its 1,800 passengers had succumbed to the highly infectious Norwalk virus. This causes short lived diarrhoea and vomiting. By the time the ship arrived in Gibraltar, only 6 passengers were displaying symptoms, however, health officials insisted 50 stay on board. the rest were allowed to disembark as long as they handed in their passports, to prevent them crossing into Spain. Despite this, the Spanish authorities still closed the border, just in case.

The PR Week magazine reported that there were around 650 broadcast references to the story and all the national and regional TV channels covered it. More than 500 print stories about the crisis appeared. Reporters from France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Argentina and Australia covered the story. In all, David Dingle conducted around 70 media interviews.

In all, only 20 people cancelled tickets, which is no more than usual. The Daily Telegraph transport correspondent summed up the crisis by saying ' the worst thing a company can do in this sort of situation is to pretend it is not happening, but P&O did not do this. It was accessible, helpful and reasonably good at giving the press information".

The recent PR crisis that P&O faced was very much just that - a PR crisis. No one died from their illness and the bug responsible, the Norwalk virus, is more of nuisance value than having killer potential. Despite this, when those involved are 'imprisoned' (the media's words, not mine - editor) on a luxury cruise ship, then journalists will develop the feeding frenzy mentality. The article below has been penned by one of our communication gurus, Jim Preen. It makes for interesting reading!

Passengers on P&O’s virus-stricken vessel, Aurora, may have felt sick but it was nothing compared to how the company must have felt after the ship docked in Southampton last week. “Adrift on the Ship of Hell”, “Cabin Fever”, “Misery Voyage Ends”, screamed the headlines. P&O had caught a terrible media bug. But the company cannot have been surprised at the response. The story had been building nicely for the past two weeks as more and more passengers fell victim to the virus, then the Greeks wouldn’t let the boat dock and Spain closed its borders when the ship arrived in Gibraltar.

And so I found myself part of the welcoming committee of journalists on Southampton quayside as the Aurora sailed out of the high seas and into a media storm.

When media training clients, we always warn of a story with legs – one which keeps moving on, and this yarn had well and truly found its sea legs by the time Aurora arrived back in Blighty.

P&O had attempted to contain the story, but they were thwarted at every turn. Ship-to-shore phones produced these kind of comments: “When my husband became ill I asked for a nurse to visit our cabin. No one came and eventually I took him to the sick bay. The doctor told me he had 30 people to see before he got to my husband and afterwards he said he had another 110 waiting.”

Another problem for P&O was the fact that so many people on board had camcorders and were only too happy to hand their pictures to broadcasters, all showing empty staterooms and pictures of the Acropolis, taken from the ship, which they were not allowed to visit.

Add to this heady brew two micro-celebrities in the form of Wife Swap couple the aptly named Michelle and Barry Seaborn, who were both baying for compensation, and it all amounted to an ocean-going problem for P&O.

Back on the quayside at 6am the assembled hacks were not a pretty sight. Their lugubrious demeanour was somewhat lifted by the arrival of hot tea, coffee and bacon butties provided by P&O. This won’t win the press over, but trust me it’s a good way to start. They also had various press officers on hand to answer our questions. The ubiquitous David Dingle, Managing Director of P&O Cruises, spoke to anyone who would listen, racking up more than a dozen interviews in a single morning. He had come in for some criticism during the week for being a little cold and not expressing enough sympathy for his passengers. On the Today programme he came unstuck when asked about whether P&O had insurance to cover possible compensation claims.

We all waited for the passengers to disembark, which they started doing from about 8.45. Now I don’t know if it was just because older people don’t like to complain, or whether it was the Dunkirk spirit, but we found it extremely hard to find anyone complaining about P&O’s handling of the situation.

A wonderful cruise they said, yes we had some discomfort but P&O did all they could. Food was only distributed by staff wearing plastic gloves, handrails were constantly cleaned, and hand wipes were left everywhere for the passengers to use.

The company may not have won the war with the media, but they had certainly done a good job with most of the passengers. Of course there were a few passengers with gripes most particularly the Wife Swap pair. As Barry said: “You can’t travel around the Pacific with sick people on board, dropping them off at ports along the way.” Well clearly you can’t, especially when you are actually in the Med.

So P&O did well with their passengers, how well the story will play in the wider world is open to debate, and only time and bookings will tell. But if many of the passengers on board are to be believed they will sail again on the Aurora.

I approached one passenger who was leaving the ship and who seemed keen to talk and asked him if he had caught the virus. “The only virus around here is you journalists”, he replied: Ouch!

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