Xenophon Strategies

Air Transport Association

Dollars and Sense

Devising a legislative and media strategy for the airline industry to change the atmosphere on Capitol Hill.

Project Highlights

• Public outreach campaign
• Government affairs
• Media relations
• Strategic counsel
• Media monitoring

Overview

Xenophon Strategies has been the firm of record for the Air Transport Association (ATA), which represents the nation’s major commercial airlines, since 2000. Xenophon provided crisis communications services to assist the ATA with its crisis communications efforts following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and currently provides strategic counsel, public and media relations support, political counsel and crisis communications services.

Ultimately, the campaign was successful as the airline industry received $3.2 billion in financial relief.

In February 2003, ATA’s board of directors directed the association’s president and CEO, Jim May, to pursue federal financial assistance as airlines increasingly began to feel the effects of the looming war in Iraq. Leaders of the nation’s airlines knew from the first Gulf War that another war at a time when the industry was still struggling to recover from the attacks of 9/11 would cause traffic to plummet and additional billions in lost revenue that the industry could not afford to absorb.

Strategy

The strategy was to attach a reimbursement for post-9/11 security costs to the supplemental appropriations bill that the President would propose to pay for the war in Iraq. The airlines faced a perception problem: Following 9/11, Congress had voted to reimburse airlines for several billion in losses. This reimbursement was widely defined in the media as a “bailout” and the atmosphere for another reimbursement was hostile.

In addition to the challenge of overcoming existing perceptions of the industry, the ATA also had a short timeline for achieving legislative relief with the war in Iraq looming. Therefore, all forms of outreach were aimed at influencing public perception and quickly educating reporters and Capitol Hill on the devastating impact a war would have on the airline industry.

Xenophon worked with the ATA’s federal and legislative affairs team to design and implement a public communications campaign to change the atmosphere on Capitol Hill. ATA had to credibly communicate that airlines were going to suffer severe damage from the war, and that the impact could force a restructuring of the industry with numerous bankruptcies and even liquidations. Xenophon designed a program built around the impact of the first Gulf War to give our projections credibility. Then, Xenophon turned the issue into a top national story and pushed it in the national and regional media.

During the first several days of the campaign, the general public could hardly turn on the television or open a newspaper without being exposed to the story. Almost all major daily newspapers across the nation covered the issue, including a cover story in USA Today. Television coverage also was heavy, with segments appearing on ABC’s World News Tonight, NBC’s Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, The Evening News with Dan Rather and NBC’s Today show. The story even received coverage in Europe.

Results

Ultimately, the campaign was successful as the airline industry received $3.2 billion in financial relief under the supplemental war bill passed by Congress in April 2003. ATA’s messages were able to get through to every major television market and newspaper outlet across the United States. Based on Xenophon’s media monitoring estimates, the campaign received more than 40 million “impressions” from television coverage alone in the first few days.