Emplifi Data Shows Airlines Are More Likely to Respond to Customer Questions on Instagram Than on Facebook or X

Emplifi, a leading customer engagement platform, today released social media performance data for global airline brands, analyzing sentiment and response rates across Facebook, Instagram and X between January 1 through May 31 in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Emplifi's findings reveal sentiment of comments for airline brands was strongest on Instagram, with more than half of comments reflecting positive sentiments. On Facebook, 34% of comments included positive sentiments and only 15% of comments were positive on X. When looking at a historical view, the sentiment of comments on Instagram has remained overwhelmingly positive for the last four years, and increased nearly four percentage points in the last year.

Airline brands also earned the highest response rates on Instagram versus response rates on Facebook or X. Since 2022, travelers are more likely to get their questions answered on Instagram (27%), compared to X (24%) and Facebook (20%).

As consumers take to the skies for summer travel, Emplifi's data makes clear that Instagram is a crucial platform for airline brands. According to a recent survey conducted by Airlines for America (A4A), a trade association supporting U.S. aircraft operators, half of the U.S. adult population took a flight in 2023 and more than 70% of survey respondents said they are taking as many or more business trips as they did before the pandemic. Interestingly, A4A's survey found that 71% of flyers reported being satisfied with their overall air travel experience last year.

"Airline brands take a lot of heat online, but our data shows the sentiment of customer comments on Instagram is overwhelmingly positive ? even on Facebook and X, sentiment has remained primarily neutral for the last five years," said Susan Ganeshan, CMO, Emplifi. "Airline brands need to listen and respond ? tracking customers and their service needs on social media networks. By prioritizing customer care on social platforms, it encourages brand loyalty and helps drive profits."

Emplifi also revealed the top ten most mentioned airline brands on X in the U.S. and worldwide. Within the U.S., Delta Air Lines, American Air, and JetBlue generated the most mentions on X between January and May this year. When analyzing worldwide data, the most mentioned airline brands were British Airways, Qatar Airways, and Delta Airlines, respectively.

About Emplifi

Emplifi's unified customer engagement platform empowers more than 20,000 of the world's leading brands to revolutionize the digital and social customer experience. With comprehensive and integrated social media marketing, social commerce, and care, combined with unified analytics and AI, Emplifi fuels growth, resulting in happy customers, increased product sales, and improved brand loyalty.