The Web’s made it harder than ever for companies to protect their good reputations. Take the recent examples of two British airlines and their problems with employees’ online conduct.

At the end of last month, Virgin Atlantic fired 13 cabin crew employees for posting derogatory comments to a Facebook message board.

Among other things, the employees joked about allegedly lax security standards, claimed that some of the company’s planes were infested with cockroaches and referred to passengers as “chavs” (a British term similar to the American phrase “white trash.”)

A few days later, British Airways began investigating a group of employees who used Facebook to call BA’s passengers “smelly and annoying.”

Virgin officials said the company has a policy against writing about the company online without authorization. But it looks like they weren’t able to make sure employees followed the rule — the company only learned what had happened after some angry customers complained.

Tags: British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Web 2.0