Korean Air Lines and Malaysia Airlines

Malaysia Airlines: That was in August 1983. But the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 from New York to Seoul 31 years ago has distinct parallels with this month killing of 298 passengers on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 , which was shot down over Ukraine , with many blaming pro-Russian rebel forces. Both incidents sparked global outrage and heightened tensions between Moscow and the west. Both incidents put the airlines involved under extreme commercial pressure. Korean Air Lines survived its brush with disaster, but not without huge changes to the way it looked and operated, according to The Guardian. The latest Malaysia Airlines tragedy comes just four months after an earlier plane, Flight MH370 , disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers on board. Jonny Clark, an aviation brand consultant, says passenger jet disasters live longer in the memory because their recognisable logos and corporate colours are splashed across TV news channels and newspaper front pages. "When a plane crashes , it not the Boeing 777 that crashed," Clark says. "For the general public, it the company that was flying the plane that crashed in this case, Malaysia Airlines." It was a sultry summer evening as Alice Ephraimson-Abt, a bright 23-year-old, waited to board the Asian aeroplane that was to take her to start a new life halfway across the world. She grabbed her father, Hans, for one last hug before jumping on to the plane. Just hours later, the passenger jet was shot down by the Russian military. Two hundred and sixty nine innocent people perished in the attack. The human cost of airline tragedies is well documented. Hans Ephraimson-Abt, who passed away last year aged 91 , went on to become a renowned air crash victim crusader after setting up the Air Crash Victims Families Group. But the business cost of recovering from these shocks is often harder to quantify. A tarnished airline brand coupled with weak finances can spell doom. Both Trans World Airlines TWA and Pan American PanAm failed as a result of the wounds left by fatal air disasters. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.