Qantas launches Twitter breaking news profile
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.
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.
Tweet; It kinda fell off but didn’t really, anyways $49 Sydney to Newcastle hurry ends midnight tonight…..
I feel a bit sorry for Qantas at the moment – everytime anything goes slightly wrong with their planes it seems someone at engineering is too busy ringing the papers to fix it.
I have never seen so much space (5 pages in the Tele) devoted to an incident where a plane returned safely to an airport and no one was injured.
We poms love to bash our national icons and it is quite interesting, and unusual, to see the Aussies really getting stuck into Qantas.
PS If Qantas are reading this – any chance of a set of those grey pyjamas – I flew return to London recently and forgot to ‘borrow’ any of the 4 pairs you gave me.
Don’t expect a speedy response or even a useful response from Qantas PR. They are well known to be the aviation industry’s equivalent of Apple PR.
Breaking news, as in “shit is breaking, people”.
Not sure if it is unfashionable to say, but overall I think Qantas have handled all of the issues they have faced in the last few weeks pretty well. Better than Rolls Royce anyway.
I don’t know
I think Alan Joyce has come across as a bit dismissive of people’s concerns.
Like when he said there were no maintenance issues almost before they’d had time to check the engine that exploded.
I would say the company should remove him as spokesperson and get someone who appears at least sympathetic, possibly a grey haired old granny who looks loveable, like Mom from futurama..
http://slurmed.com/fanart/javi.....smiles.gif
Mom first appears as a plump, friendly matron on Futurama. Under the fat suit and sweet smile, she is a cutthroat business woman, the 99.7% shareholder of Momcorp, the largest industrial conglomerate known to man, with subsidiaries ranging from Mom’s Friendly Robot Company to Mom’s Old-Fashioned Video Surveillance Unit. She is foul-mouthed, continually telling everyone, even her sons, to cram it or shove it.
Media are reporting further incidents on QANTAS planes that actually happen all the time but are now news worthy because of the A380 eff up the other week.
I actually thought this account was fake e.g. equivalent of @BPGlobalPR …