Communicating during the crisis

Rarely has there been a greater need for good communication. The aftershocks from the Coronavirus pandemic promise to reverberate through the aviation sector for years to come. So, working in an aviation company, has clearly been a challenging time. As the Head of Communications, helping our people to understand what is happening to the business and what it means for them has been one of my absolute priorities for weeks.

Unlike the scheduled airlines, 2Excel Aviation and our sister company 2Excel Engineering have proved incredibly resilient. That is partly due to our diversity of operations but also because we are good in a crisis. 2Excel’s story is one of perseverance, ingenuity and pride but overwhelmingly one of persistence. I feel privileged to be part of the story, having joined the company's Management Board almost a year ago.

2Excel was built on adversity. When the original concept, The Blades aerobatic team, was battered by the 2008/09 financial crisis, our founders were forced to get creative and apply the hard-won skills and experience gained in the military to generate new income streams. The first contract, training forward air controllers for the British Army, continues to this day. We have grown to number around 450 people with more than 30 aeroplanes, from five people and four aircraft at foundation. Furloughing people in our hardest-hit lines of business has been difficult but we have already started to bring people back to work.

Throughout the lockdown we have continued with our essential operations, whether life-saving Search and Rescue flights on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to providing 24/7 standby with our global oil spill response capability, helping to repatriate British citizens stuck abroad on behalf of the UK Government to servicing airliners.

Continuing to tell our story has been vital during this time. Everyone who interacts with 2Excel, whether inside or outside the organisation, needs to know we are guiding the business through these challenges and that we are sticking by our core ethos of agility, strength and courage while proactively managing our risks.

For professional communicators across the industry, we have established or cemented ourselves as trusted members of the executive team, not only to reassure and listen to employees' concerns with good internal communications, but also helping to communicate with customers and suppliers about how companies have reacted to the pandemic, including what mitigation we have in place and how this might affect Business As Usual. At 2Excel, we have found support among our loyal customers remains strong. They know we are doing everything we can to continue our vital work for them. This has been achieved by excellent teamwork across the business.

Different perspectives

The rather gratuitous picture at the top of this story is an image I've returned to look at several times during the pandemic. Why? It serves two purposes. Firstly, it reminds me of the pre-Covid world where I could jump in a vintage aeroplane with friends and go flying for pleasure, leaving any cares and troubles on the ground to just revel in the beauty of flight. Up there, the ground below always looks the same, no matter what is happening in the real world. The view is a great leveller and a reminder of our relative insignificance amid this ancient and enduring landscape. It also helps me to remember we will get through this awful situation, although sadly with much grieving for the many thousands of people who have lost loved ones.

But secondly, this picture of joining up in formation reminds me of the constant need for understanding and teamwork in everything we do. The leader is flying his silver aircraft sympathetically, allowing me to join up on his wing so we can become as one. We must work together to achieve this state. It can't be done in isolation. It is also about trust. The leader is trusting me not to fly into him. I, in turn, must trust him, as he is responsible for collision avoidance and safely navigating us along our route while I concentrate on staying in position, watching the reference points on his aircraft.

As we navigate through the current pandemic and into the recovery, understanding and teamwork will continue to dominate our working practices and lives at home. I know I won't be alone in constantly reflecting on the many lessons of the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic to further improve the way we communicate in future.

Ben Griffiths is the Head of Communications at UK aviation services company 2Excel. He was previously an agency adviser, working closely with companies from Airbus to Malaysia Airlines, having spent 20 years as a journalist and editor, predominantly in daily business news.