Twitter's fate up in the air

Students who fly home for the holidays are turning to a once unlikely source for travel information: Twitter.

Increasing numbers of airline passengers are making traveling less hectic by using the social networking site that allows users to post messages consisting of 140 characters or fewer.

Airlines such as jetBlue, Alaska and Southwest use Twitter to tout low airfare promotions, provide travel tips and answer customer questions. With public relations officials in the cockpit, airline staffers also use social networking sites to monitor consumer complaints and quickly respond to inquiries.

“When twitter started [jetBlue] saw two or three tweets a day mentioning our brand name, but now we see several hundred a day,” said Morgan Johnston, manager of corporate communications for jetBlue.

Johnston participated in a podcast about new media and social networking sites earlier this year with fellow public relations experts from Southwest and Alaska Airlines. The corporate twitterers acknowledged that the site helps airlines connect with their customers, but it cannot solve every problem. For example, it is not a practical tool when customers have complicated concerns such as lost luggage.

“Twitter is the new hot topic,” said Andrea Schwarzbach, a marketing spokesperson for Alaska Airlines.

It provides a two-way conversation for airlines to engage with customers, she added.

Customers, such as WSU freshman communication major Peter Wagner, are discovering new ways to use the site and connect with fellow travelers.

“I never thought about using it for travel,” Wagner said. “It seems like the next step though. People already use it to get news and everything else.”

Wagner said he made six or seven tweets between his flights home for Thanksgiving last week, posting comments about lines at security checkpoints and flight troubles.

While airlines and travelers have embraced Twitter, airport officials have not gravitated to the site yet.

Officials at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport said they still rely on their Web site to inform travelers of flight delays and new vendors in the terminal.

“Facebook and Twitter are something we have kept an eye on, but people are still turning to our web site,” said Sea-Tac Media Officer Perry Cooper. “For the airlines, it is a great opportunity. For us, we have so many different airlines that people go to our Web site and sign up for our e-mail notifications instead.”

With the Holiday travel season approaching, airport officials are expecting increased traffic in the sky and online. About 362,000 people visited the Sea-Tac Web site in December 2008, which is nearly five times as many people compared to the rest of the year, Cooper said.

Airlines are preparing for more twitter followers this December as well.

“There is a strong connection between the number of travelers and the number of tweets we see,” Johnston said.

To accommodate flyers, travel agencies are taking advantage of new media as well. Travelocity has started placing “spotters” in the nation’s largest airports to blog and tweet about travel conditions at each location.

Though Twitter remains in its infancy, the increased use by airlines and passengers proves its fate in the travel industry is no longer up in the air.

Morgan Johnston - (718) 826-7900

Andrea Shwarzbach- (206) 431-7049

Perry Cooper-(206) 787-4923

Peter Wagner- (360) 220-7545