But, and it is a big but, the world is conflicted, and conflict is part of reality. Let me give an example. My dad spent his life doing a job he loved working on the back of a London bus serving a public he loved to serve well. But he was a trade union militant who hated the bosses and everything they stood for. He would never have wanted to be aligned with their outlook – no more they would wanted to have been aligned with his. He moaned relentlessly about pay and conditions and management incompetence. Yet my father father was happy in his misery and dressed smartly, ran his bus on time, and never took sickies as a matter of pride (but he did strike, sometimes).

On another tack, doing good work and feeling happy are very often – perhaps more often than not – not connected because somehow people just get on and do it well for selfish motivations or get fired or move on (all options facing BA cabin crew). There’s cognitive dissonance there, and False Consciousness, too. That’s us, we’re not consistent, and we just have to deal with it. But BA and its workers both just lost the plot.

But, I’m not convinced that the lesson is to avoid presenting employees at the heart of a brand. The issue with such approaches is a mismatch in reality and marketing hype. If staff and customer service truly are at the heart of a brand then there is no danger in the public understanding this – indeed, they will be communicating the same message through word of mouth.

However, in the case of BA, I never felt that their cabin staff were even the best in the industry, let alone the epitome of excellent customer service. So, yes BA did create a monster – because the organisation and its staff believed the hype and didn’t match this to the reality.

There a a lot of other management issues at BA affecting the relationships with staff which has a knock-on to customers and public relations. For example, I was on a BA flight last year when a flight attendant refused to help an older passenger lift her bag into the overhead lockers saying that if he hurt himself doing so, the company wouldn’t support any resulting sickleave. That created a very negative impression and was pure jobsworthness. Obviously another passenger lifted the bag up.

Effective internal comms is not a “trendy PR” thought, but good business sense. But what that means is really engaging with staff and communicating more honestly about problems rather than just misusing the “employees are our greatest asset” mantra. Survival of the mothership shouldn’t be distinct from employee needs, even if that means some employees needs must be met on another starshipl or voyage!

For an airline, the staff are vitally important (even for Ryanair and lower service-oriented brands). Their “unhappiness and discontent” does matter to the public when it results in service that is way below even basic expectations. (We could have the Ryanair attitude to disabled passengers debate here!)

Being made redundant or putting up with lower standards of employment are frequently facts of our working lives – but organisations can still ensure they treat staff with respect in such circumstances. Besides companies need to maintain the morale of those who are still onboard – whether that is the passenger or the airline crew.

But I’m in total agreement that using employees or boards of directors as lynch pins of a PR campaign is complete folly.