Qantas has launched an official “breaking news” Twitter profile after the company was accused of being slow to respond to tweets suggesting that the Airbus A380 which lost an engine earlier this month had crashed.
In the minutes after the November 4 near disaster, Twitter was full of differing versions of what had happened, including many retweeted reports that a Qantas plane had exploded or crashed.
Initial news stories were also confusing with one web story featuring an image of part of the distinctive red and white damaged engine cover on the ground next to a quote from Qantas saying there was no evidence a Qantas plane had been involved.
The confusion driven by Twitter was reported by the Sydney Morning Herald at the time.
ADVERTISEMENT
Last week, @QantasMedia was launched. The first person it followed was Crikey’s aviation blogger Ben Sandilands.
The airline has also started including a link to the profile on its news releases.
So far Qantas has only used the account eight times – four of those in relation to the aftermath of the A380 emergency.
At the time of posting, nobody from the Qantas media team had returned Mumbrella’s request for comment on its Twitter strategy.