How are reputations at risk in passenger transportation?
The sector is under pressure to decarbonize in many countries, while encouraged to roll back green policies in others, creating uncertainty and new reputational pitfalls. Even positions on issues such as diversity can rebound on a company’s image as these become contested arenas.
In our third Reputation Risk Readiness Survey, we asked 100 senior executives from leading airline, cruise and train companies, how they are adjusting to this fast changing landscape. What do they see as the main risks to their reputation? How ready are they to deal with the fallout from a reputational crisis. And how would they cope with the financial impact?
Our findings suggest that as the risk landscape has become more complex, reputational concerns have shifted. Respondents appear less worried about traditional risks such as safety and more about sustainability and cyber.
The results also appear to confirm that companies are taking reputation more seriously. Greater finance and corporate involvement in decisions around reputational risk management reflect a shift in focus from managing reputation as a function of branding to managing reputation as a risk.
Environment is the no. 1 reputation risk
63% named environmental issues among their top reputational concerns, as public and regulatory scrutiny of the sector’s environmental impact continues to increase in many countries.
Cyber is the fastest growing threat
61% of transportation firms put the potential fallout from a cyber-attack among their top risks to reputation. This indicates a big shift in the threat landscape since 2023 when cyber was ranked by just 28%.
Firms manage reputation as a risk
86% said they have a formal process in place for assessing and managing reputational risks, slightly up in 2023, although only 13% say this is linked to board level key performance indicators (KPIs).
Crisis teams are stronger
91% say they have a formal team that trains together and responds to negative publicity events, with 36% saying this is linked to KPIs — up from 20% in 2023.
Financial modeling and resilience are low
15% said they had a great deal of modeling capability to understand the costs and liabilities associated with reputational damage. This was up from 5% in our 2023 survey.
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