The increasing widespread use of these instantaneous online messaging systems by
current and prospective customers poses a range of challenges and opportunities
for airlines. This paper examines how 50 major international passenger airlines use
of one of these sites, twitter, to discover the extent to which individual carriers
have embraced this new form of communication. Twitter was selected for analysis
because it is increasingly used by passengers to instantly communicate their
(dis)pleasure at particular aspects of an airline’s service, via the internet, to
potentially tens of thousands of people. Twitter users thus have the ability to
damage or bolster an airline’s reputation in the press of a few buttons and so it is
vital that airlines understand and effectively manage their online brand presence in
this relatively new form of social media