Eezeer and SimpliFlying launch airline monthly twitter report – Delta leads Twitter use, and customer service is in!

The Backstory

These are very exciting times in the airline industry. Last month, I shared a number of vital statistics about airlines’ twitter usage at a keynote in San Francisco [view presentation]. While those gave a good overview of how the industry is using the platform, one key aspect was lacking – the social media landscape for is constantly evolving, and a report produced once doesn’t do it justice. While we felt we should produce an ongoing report on that, we didn’t really have a data source for all the latest and greatest statistics.

That’s when Arnaud from Eezeer got in touch [remember? Eezeer = real-time airline reviews], and mentioned that they’re looking to produce a monthly twitter report from all the data they’ve been gathering from travelers. One thing led to another, and the end result was this first infographic that you see below – full of startling data about how airlines (and travelers) use Twitter. The best part is that this report will be released monthly – so look out for this every month in our infographics section (latest by the 5th of each month).

Airlines on Twitter – Oh…the stories data tells

While you drool over the data in the infographic below, I thought I’d highlight some interesting stories, which may not stand out on first glance:

1. You’ll see that twitter use among airlines is spread out globally – with Top four airlines featuring Delta, TAM Brazil and AirAsia (Malaysia!)
2. While there are 168 airlines on twitter, only 77 are actively tweeting, and 80% of all tweets come from just 30 airlines (17%)!
3. While Delta Airlines replies to the most number of tweets, it’s AirAsia that replies to the largest percentage of tweets to an airline – over 40% of tweets are replied to – that’s some serious effort, and this is way above the industry average of 24%
4. While customer service is the most important function being addressed on Twitter (due to its real-time nature), it’s comfort & security that’s on the rise – remember how @TimF10 was helping American Airlines passengers with security setup at AA terminal at LAX?
5. Long-haul low-cost carrier AirAsia X has come out ahead of legacy carriers like Cathay Pacific and Asiana in the quality of customer service provided on Twitter. And it’s Azul from Brazil that’s leading in the “comfort and security” space.

The conclusion from all this – twitter use is on the rise. Some airlines are adapting quickly to travelers’ increased use of social technologies. But not all have a strategy for this, and we’ll figure out in the upcoming months who are the flukes and who are the real deal.

Exciting times!