Social media can be difficult for some to get their head around, and it can take a while before a company finds its ‘voice’, but there are some lines that everyone should know not to cross.
The latest company to miss the mark on the 140 character social network is US Airways, and they did so in a spectacular fashion yesterday in response to a customer complaint about their plane being delayed.
Elle Rafter tweeted:
@USAirways Unhappy that 1787 sat for an hour on tarmac in CLT because overweight, resulting in over hour late arrival in PDX…
— Elle (@ElleRafter) April 14, 2014
To which US Airways responded with the formulaic but polite (now removed) reply:
“We truly dislike delays too and are very sorry your flight was affected.”
However, rafter wasn’t happy with that response, replying with:
@USAirways yeah, you seem so very sorry. So sorry, in fact, that you couldn't be bothered to address my other tweets.
— Elle (@ElleRafter) April 14, 2014
And this tone apparently didn’t sit well with whomever was manning the Twitter account as US Airways, as they replied with a rather graphic image of a model 777 jet being used as a dildo, along with the words:
“We welcome feedback, Elle. If your travel is complete, you can detail it here for review and follow-up.”
Someone is definitely getting fired and US Airways has apologised, but the sheer vulgarity of the reply on a branded Twitter account will mean that US Airways may be famous for more than late arrivals for the foreseeable future.
We apologize for an inappropriate image recently shared as a link in one of our responses. We’ve removed the tweet and are investigating.
— US Airways (@USAirways) April 14, 2014
(The explicit and very NSFW image can be seen here)
