Emirates

With an SMR score of almost 53 and enough Facebook fans to fill an Airbus A380 430 times over, Emirates top our mini-league. Their cabin crew receive overwhelming praise in social spaces, but their satisfaction score has fallen in the last month due to a recent string of complaints about lost baggage and poor customer service.

With numerous sponsorships, including the upcoming Rugby World Cup and Arsenal’s home ground, there is a lot of comment in social spaces. Their Facebook page, despite having over 225k likes, appears bland in comparison to its competitors. Interaction is sporadic, with recent content flooding the wall as it is uploaded all at once. The brand’s Twitter account however, combines marketing with customer service, with the brand quick to retweet happy customers.

Recommendations: With no links to what appears to be Emirates official Facebook page, the airline should work on integrating social media into their website.

With the Cap code extending to social from March 1st Emirates needs to be careful around retweeting customer messages in official channels as they are accountable for their accuracy.

British Airways

Despite entering the Guinness Book of Records with its ‘Comedy Gig in the Sky’, British Airways just misses out on top spot in our airlines mini-league. BA neither uses nor advertises its Facebook page. Instead they turn their focus to Twitter, where their @British_Airways account has amassed 54k followers, while their American counterpart, @BritishAirways, is closing in on 100k followers. Both pages focus on providing customer support, alongside daily marketing messages and deals.

With 47k fans of their blank Facebook page, it is evident that there is a clear appetite for engagement from the brand. Despite their presence on Facebook, their wall blocks interaction from fans. BA’s satisfaction score is also very low, with only Ryanair behind them. Recent news scandals have dramatically affected their score, with bed bug problems onboard the airline’s 747s and a former BA worker found guilty of plotting to blow up a plane.

Recommendations: BA shies away from Facebook, with only a handful of tabs in operation and no content on their wall suggesting the airline has concerns about negative comments appearing on this platform.

This could be combated by taking a leaf out of Virgin’s customer service strategy and appointing named customer service representatives to handle customer queries on this platform – BA’s Twitter customer support staff could spread their wings and bring life to BA’s Facebook wall.

Qantas

Qantas’ strength in the Australian market propels the airline group to a respectable SMR score over 50. The ‘satisfaction’ rating took a knock in Feb when another Qantas flight was grounded.

A closer look at Qantas’ social media presences reveals them to be one of the backmarkers in terms of followers, yet their video content is leaps and bounds ahead of nearest competitor, British Airways. The recent ‘Open Mic’ competition brought in musicians from all over Australia, each linking the video back to the Qantas page, generating both publicity and backlinks for the company. The airlines sponsorship of the Qantas Australian Grand Prix has allowed them to publish exclusive F1 content, an area they could develop further in the lead up to, and beyond, their big weekend.

Recommendations: The Qantas YouTube channel is the most popular of the airlines ranked in our league table. For the upcoming Grand Prix, Qantas ambassador Mark Webber fronts an F1 competition, but the ‘behind-the-scenes’ exclusivity afforded to sponsors is not provided to Qantas customers and it’s hard to find any added value for being a loyal Qantas customer.

Virgin Atlantic

To quote the company’s current strapline, “Your airline’s either got it or it hasn’t”, and flying over the numerous Virgin Atlantic social media platforms it’s clear that Virgin Atlantic have ‘got It’. Their Facebook page lands on their latest ad campaign but the feel is somewhat marketing-driven although their customer service representatives are on hand to respond to queries from their 63k followers.

Virgin’s travel social network, V Travelled, is a great community platform although on-site engagement is relatively low (1k RSS subscriptions and 2.3k followers on Twitter).

Recommendations: The V Travelled site is interesting and engaging but seems to mainly rely on the corporate Facebook page to deliver traffic. The brand is missing a trick when it comes to YouTube, however. The V Travelled page lacks branding, information, or recent content, and the official Virgin Atlantic channel is also weak, featuring outdated content. Some quick fixes will set them back on an upward trajectory.

Ryanair

It seems that Michael O’Leary hasn’t discovered the potential cost savings from using social media. While Ryanair might be Britain’s biggest low-cost airline, they certainly aren’t the country’s biggest social media fans. Ryanair’s presence on social media is equal to the legroom on their flights, or perhaps users have to sign up for a deluxe paid version of Facebook to find their page? Either way, you’ll be hard pushed to find Ryanair engaging in any type of social media dialogue.

Recommendations: As an airline that is renowned for enforcing strict limits, Ryanair would be naturals when it comes to Twitter. Should the company decide to launch into social media, they must be prepared for negative discussion on their pages, however this might not be such a bad thing given Michael O’Leary’s “any publicity is good publicity” approach.