Crisis Line and Customer Support for a National Airline
A crisis line had to open immediately
In January 2020, flight PS752 was shot down shortly after departing Tehran, and everyone on board was killed. The airline needed a dedicated line for the families of the victims, and it needed it immediately. Every pressure on that line had to be met without lowering the standard on the rest of the operation:
Hours, not weeks
Families were calling in the first hours after the news. The line had to be open and staffed before any normal setup process could even begin.
No precedent to follow
No process, script or earlier case existed for a line like this, on this account or anywhere else in the operation.
The hardest conversations a contact centre handles
Callers came with grief, anger and disbelief. Every conversation needed care and discretion, with no room for a scripted or rushed response.
Practical matters still had to be resolved
Alongside the emotional weight of each call, the airline had administrative realities that families needed help with and that had to be handled correctly.
Everyday support could not slip
Regular passengers still needed to book, change and pay for flights. The account’s main contractual KPI, a 95% quality target, applied to that work on the worst days exactly as it did on ordinary ones.
Care before speed: one standard for both lines
A dedicated line, opened at once
Simply Contact opened and staffed a separate line for victims’ families in the immediate aftermath of the crash, so these calls never had to compete with routine enquiries.
People who could hold these calls
The line was staffed with agents able to hold space for grief, anger and disbelief, often from callers in their first hours after the news, while still working through the practical matters the airline needed resolved.
Regular operations held in parallel
The crisis line never came at the expense of the everyday work. Day-to-day support continued alongside the crisis line at the same 95% quality standard.
Methodology behind our solution
The crisis line worked because the foundations were already in place. Full ownership of support and a quality-first KPI let us adapt fast without lowering the bar.
End-to-end ownership of support
The airline handed Simply Contact its customer support in full: inbound and outbound calls, email support, payment processing, and ticket issuing directly in Amadeus. Owning the whole operation meant we could reshape it quickly when the situation demanded.
Quality as the contractual priority
A 95% quality target was the account's main KPI and the measure the airline trusted us to hold. It set the bar for every conversation, from a routine booking to a call from a grieving family.
Discretion built into the line
The crisis line was designed around how people speak in moments of loss, with conversations led by care rather than handling time.
Quality that held, whatever the circumstances
Two crises in one year, one with no precedent at all and one that reshaped the whole industry, put the airline's support under pressure it had never faced before.
The crisis line was stood up with no playbook, the rebooking surge was absorbed, and regular passengers were served at the same level throughout. The engagement closed in 2020 as pandemic-driven volume declines reshaped the airline's operations.
- 95% quality target met through both crises and on the day-to-day work around them.
- A dedicated line for victims' families opened within hours of the PS752 tragedy, with no prior playbook to draw on.
- The COVID-19 rebooking and refund surge absorbed without the quality standard slipping.
- Six-year end-to-end partnership covering voice, email, payments and Amadeus ticketing.
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