#QantasLuxury, the hashtag debacle from @QantasAirways.

Oh dear!  What I would have given to be a fly on the wall in Neil Ross’s office (Group General Manager Marketing) on Wednesday.  The Gen Y social media guru’s would have come up with this plan as a brilliant idea as part of the “reconnect with the customer” strategy. The play would have been put in place and the campaign launch set, except! And this is where the pain started.

The online tsunami started when the Gen Y people released  the “Qantas Luxury” competition on Twitter, asking users to say what their “dream luxury inflight experience” in return for a pair of pj’s and a wash bag branded Qantas.

Within minutes, users had hijacked the #qantasluxury hashtag to vent their anger at the embattled airline, which late last month cancelled all its flights around the world in an attempt to force government intervention in its industrial negotiations.

Lets take a look at some of the better twitter feeds

@lehmo23

@julieposetti

@QantasAirways They really lost the plot, would the judging be the most derogatory(thousands) or pro Qantas entries (Count your fingers).

But the best was still to come on You Tube which could be argued hijacked the show.  The Qantas downfall parity video is nothing short of brilliant. There must have an accolade that can be given for this work, Golden Globe …..

Just how did they get so wrong?  For two days the hashtag #QantasLuxury ran wild on twitter and the media did not miss the story.  How could they? The only thing that would have knocked this out was a natural disaster of biblical proportions or a screw up from a shock jock and did they have their prayers answered, Enter stage left Kyle Sandilands.  In the words of my daughter, OMG.  In the end even Qantas was ducking for cover in the Kyle Sandilands mess.  The following tweet must have appeared 40 times on the Qantas twitter feed

Oh well,another day, another Qantas PR disaster and as an end note, the Brisbane baggage handlers did not loose my luggage on Monday despite it having to sit on a trolley in the baggage handling area for 11 hours but the Brisbane Qantas lounge, Canberra is a sea of tranquillity and harmony.

Happy travels.