The Airlines That Actually Listen When You Complain on Twitter

These are the airlines that will reply to your Twitter messages when you’ve got something to complain about.

Thanks to airlines-mileageplus-681/” target=”_blank”>United’s incident last April when a passenger was dragged off a plane and it was broadcast over social media, many airlines now staff around-the-clock social media workers. But how quick are they to respond when there’s trouble in the friendly skies? Now we know, thanks to a study released this week by Conversocial. The study measured response rates on Facebook and Twitter by 20 top airlines in North America, Europe, and the Middle East.

The North America-based study gave good marks to American Airlines took that honor, responding to about 32 percent. Air Canada was last, only responding to about 10 percent.

“We recognize that oftentimes social media is the most convenient way for customers to interact with us and we are continuing to work hard on a daily basis to improve our response time,” United spokeswoman Maggie Schmerin told My San Antonio, noting the airline plans to increase social media staff by more than 150 percent in 2018’s first quarter.

It’s important to note, though, that not replying to a tweet doesn’t necessarily mean the airline isn’t working on the problem. Finnair, for example, had a low tweet response rate, but faulted the study itself with those results because it only covered one of the airline’s three Twitter accounts.

“In addition, as the majority of the messages are related to reservations and include personal data, the great majority of requests are dealt in direct messages,” a Finnair spokesperson told My San Antionio.

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