Three days after the most epic on-the-job resignation of the decade, the Steven Slater Facebook page has grown to 172,500 supportive fans. The mainstream press has been all over it. The Late Night With Jimmy Fallon show produced a song in honor of Slater, and even ex-Headline News host Nancy Grace publicly cheered Slater on. But who’s the only one not talking about Steven Slater? Jet Blue airlines, one of the most social media-savvy and customer-friendly companies out there.

JetBlue has only released one “no comment” comment on the JetBlue Airlines blog that refers to Slater and his departure as “a little story about one of our flight attendants.” The post also notes that they are refraining from comment due to the continuing investigation and in order to “protect the privacy of the individual.” This is completely understandable. But what seems odd to us is that JetBlue, a company that speaks to its 1.6 million followers on Twitter and 301,000 fans on Facebook, has said absolutely nothing in response to the thousands of conversations happening on its accounts.

Clearly traditional crisis management techniques don’t measure-up when a company is already in an intimate relationship with its customers online, and it also shows how even the most social-savvy companies can be unprepared for the PR backdoor attack. According to the New York Times, Zeta Buzz online media technology has shown that positive conversations surrounding Jet Blue have decreased from 79% to 70% since the incident. Jet Blue has been light-hearted and dedicated to discussing things online with its fans in the past. Now, the fans are still expecting at least some attention.

Learn more about SMI’s Nov. 16 Social Media Crisis Communications and Reputation Management workshop.

Many marketing commentators (including ourselves) think this is a golden opportunity for Jet Blue to seize the generated publicity and weigh it against the company’s positive aspects, such as its excellent past safety record. PR expert, Michael Levine, told the New York Times this morning that “this is a teachable moment for Jet Blue to try to create context for what happened,” by saying more stuff like this to its dedicated fans:

We understand that travel today is not always a luxury experience. We at JetBlue are trying to do everything we can for your safety.

Neutral, yet positively uplifting. Regardless, at least it’s something.