These Airlines Fear Your Twitter Rampage the Most

As everyone learned when a passenger was forcibly removed from a United Express flight, social media and the ubiquity of mobile phone cameras have shifted the ground rules for airline customer service. The best and worst corporate interactions speed across the internet with potentially dire results for corporate targets of public anger.

For air carriers in particular, “the world changed” last April after the Chicago dragging incident, Oscar Munoz , chief executive officer of United Continental Holdings Inc., said in a June talk at the Wings Club in New York. This new reality is largely the reason so many airlines now staff social media departments around the clock, offering customers quick service while monitoring internet chatter for potential trouble, celebrity tweets and video snippets that could go viral.