Each Receives $5,000 For Personal Property Losses

US Airways launched what could be considered a preemptive strike this week... on both the public relations and, perhaps, legal fronts. The airline -- which, it would be fair to say, is basking in the good publicity brought about by last week's successful ditching of Flight 1549 in the Hudson River -- announced Tuesday it will send $5,000 to each of the 150 passengers who were onboard the stricken airliner.

According to USA Today, the money is to help tide those passengers over financially while the airline works to return personal effects that went down with the ship, as it were. For the moment, those items are under the authority of the National Transportation Safety Board, as it conducts its investigation into why the Airbus A320 lost engine power January 15.

"We anticipate that the delay the investigation causes may present an inconvenience and expense for you," writes Kerry F. Hester, VP of reservations and customer service planning, in a letter to the passengers. "We want to do our best to ensure that you do not incur personal expense or hardship while the investigation continues. To assist you with your immediate needs, we have enclosed a check for $5,000."

Passengers can expect to be without any personal items they left onboard the plane for at least two months, and probably longer. As part of the NTSB's investigative process, all items must be weighed in their current (read, wet) state, then dried out for eight weeks and weighed again.

The $5,000 checks are the airline's latest PR-friendly gesture to passengers onboard Flight 1549, who walked away from the water landing with mostly minor injuries.

While the investigation is ongoing, the general consensus so far is that an encounter with a massive flock of birds choked off power in both engines as the jetliner climbed through 3,000 feet after takeoff from New York LaGuardia, and that Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles skillfully guided the plane to a safe ditching in the Hudson.

The successful outcome of Flight 1549 will be talked about for years, and it has cast the otherwise beleaguered US Airways in a favorable light with the general public and aviation community alike. It has also posed something of a unique public relations quandary for the carrier, however... as airlines are typically better prepared to handle more serious aviation accidents, when it comes to liability and PR matters.

By comparison, responding to the needs of passengers following a successful (and highly-visible) accident is uncharted territory. In his Airline Biz Blog, Dallas Morning News reporter Terry Maxon notes US Airways can't fall back on the old standard of "our thoughts and prayers are with the families" of those onboard 1549... since, well, everyone lived.

Conversely, the airline can't tout the successful outcome, either. First of all, to do so would be rather uncouth... but such an attitude could also open the airline to possible legal action, if the NTSB's investigation reveals the airline may have shared some responsibility for the accident after all.

If that happens, those $5,000 checks wouldn't shield US Airways from potential lawsuits... though they may help guard the carrier's image in the court of public opinion.

FMI: www.usairways.com