The difficult relationship between the media and air transport

There is no doubt that air travel is one of the media’s favourite subjects. This activity has become
accessible to the general public even if a very small number of the inhabitants of the planet have
already practiced it. And then it is not natural for an earthling to be propelled into the air, at an
altitude of 10,000 meters to fly at 900 km/h in order to arrive at a destination several thousand
kilometers away in countries that sometimes speak a foreign language. In short, taking a flight is still
very anxiety-provoking and it is not the crossing of airports that will ease the apprehension of taking
the plane. At least 50% of passengers are still afraid in this mode of transport. All this probably
explains why the media are so interested in this sector of activity. Let’s add that air transport makes
very beautiful images that televisions and magazines are fond of.

And yet it cannot be said that the media treat air transport in a completely neutral way, especially
since the generalization of social networks. Not a day goes by without a blurb mentioning an incident
that occurred on board an aircraft. One flight was diverted because a passenger felt unwell, or
because an altercation, even a benign one, occurred on board. And the treatment is always dramatic.
The XY Airlines flight was forced to turn back for such an incident. Of course, this is news, but is it
normal to dramatize what is most often only a usual procedure intended to ensure the safety of
passengers?

Basically, customers are now the first providers of news and even images, which are very practical for
filling programs or publications when the activity is not urgent. And innocuous incidents are thus
going around the world, pushed by social networks without all the information having been
prioritized.

Of course, airlines are not free of defects and these must be brought to the attention of consumers,
but sometimes they deserve a technical explanation which is not always provided because it is not
very accessible to the general public. Take the example of plane delays. A certain number of them
are due to technical constraints attributable to the company, others come from a malfunction that
prevents the aircraft from taking off and this is very fortunate, and still others come from air traffic
control, which is divided into several areas, each of which can be a cause of delay. I am thinking in
particular of the repeated strikes affecting European and particularly French air traffic control, which
are a source of delays that are ultimately blamed on the carriers by passengers who are legitimately
irritated by these setbacks.

Next to that, the enormous work done by this sector of activity to achieve excellence is often
overlooked. All it takes is for individuals in need of media coverage to sabotage an aircraft by
painting it green for it to make the front page of the media while the huge investments made for the
decarbonization of air transport are ignored. However, it should be recognized that those in charge
of air transport do not always take the necessary steps to publicize their efforts and that the various
components of the sector spend more time complaining about each other rather than valuing this
difficult activity together.

Basically, the relationship between the media and air transport is “I love you, I don’t love you either”.
There is both a fascination for this activity, which is widely reported in the newspapers, and a
reluctance on the part of operators to disseminate information that is often very explanatory and
which would make air transport even more accepted by the population. Let’s just take the example
of noise. The media regularly relay the complaints of airport residents about the movements of
aircraft forced to fly over them, without it being mentioned that these same residents take full
advantage of the economic activity generated by the airport platforms, which explains why they have
settled nearby, and why we never see any mention that the noise of the aircraft decreases from year
to year under the effect of the very expensive searches paid for by the various operators. An aircraft
of the latest generation of medium-haul aircraft, the most common category, makes 5 times less
noise than an aircraft of the same capacity from the 1990s.

It is not a question here of passing judgment on the merits of the treatment of aerial information,
but just of emphasizing certain misunderstandings between the air sector and the media universe. A
little effort on either side would not hurt.