The promoted tweet from Hasan Syed, retweeted hundreds of times read: “Don’t fly @BritishAirways. Their customer service is horrendous.”
“I’m sorry for spamming everyones feeds. It just has to be done. The customer is usually right.” said Syed on his Twitter account.
The complaint was a long time coming from the disgruntled passenger, who “Thanks for ruining my EU business trip #britishairways. I shouldnt have flown @BritishAirways @British_Airways. Never flying with you again”
Syed paid for the tweet via Twitter’s new self-service ad platform. The story was picked up by social media website Mashable and word spread fast.
However, according to the BBC, it took four hours for British Airways to get the message and reply. The company said: “Sorry for the delay in responding, our twitter feed is open 09:00-17:00 GMT. Please DM [direct message] your baggage ref and we’ll look into this.”
“We would like to apologise to the customer for the inconvenience caused. We have been in contact with the customer and the bag is due to be delivered today,” said BA, according to the BBC.
I refuse to stop running Twitter Ads until @British_Airways finds the lost luggage
— (@HVSVN) September 3, 2013
Hey @British_Airways: Good PR = responding to @HVSVN with an apology and information. Bad PR = what you are doing.
— Terminally Snarky (@whiskeypants) September 3, 2013
@BritishAirways @British_Airways is the worst airline ever. Lost my luggage & can't even track it down. Absolutely pathetic #britishairways
— (@HVSVN) September 2, 2013
customers are fighting back via social @hvsvn buys a promoted tweet to complain about @british_airways http://t.co/mtKbA73cUK #futuretrend
— Andrew Grill (@AndrewGrill) September 3, 2013
