Overview
Social media monitoring has become a critical tool in the aviation and airline industry, helping companies manage their reputation, manage daily operational customer-centric issues, improve customer service, track industry trends, and respond to crises in real time.
Social listening tools offer airlines insights to brand sentiment analysis, and this has benefitted flight operations, airport operations and product development team into strategic consumer insights to better align to the airline’s customer value proposition.
With millions of passengers sharing their travel experiences online every day, airlines such as Malaysian National Carrier MAS actively monitor social platforms, news websites, and forums to gain insights and enhance their services using a set of social media listening tools. And other Malaysian-based airlines such as Air Asia are increasingly using technology to mine social data to understand new trends, recurring complaints and to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns across several regions.
In this article, we will go deep into how social media monitoring tools can provide exceptional consumer insights throughout a passenger journey.
Berkshire Media is a leading social media monitoring service company in the aviation and airline industry in Malaysia, backed by decades of airline experience in sentiment data analytics, data cleaning and providing consumer insights using the best technology, process and people.
Social Insights: What do passengers value about MAS and what can we learn from it?
Malaysia Airlines as the national carrier, had come a long way from its initial set up as Malayan Airways Limited to become what is known as Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB) currently.
The company carries an average of 40,000 passengers daily, covering 59 destinations with a total network of 1,000 destinations including code-share flights.
Despite unfortunate events in recent years which have thrusted Malaysia Airlines in an unfavourable spotlight, the company too has its share of loyal customer base over the years, which should not come as a surprise given its track record of hospitality.
Social sentiment analysis on large airlines demonstrates the data-driven capabilities to identify the airline’s strengths and new opportunities to retain or capture new customer base whilst maintaining a high quality of service across the passenger journey.
“By having a clean set of data, social listening tool can benefit operational managers in the airline industry purely from understanding the sentiment insights”, said Shahid Shayaa, a former business turnaround aviation specialist who is now the CEO of Berkshire Media.
Now let’s look at the sentiment of the passenger journey before the flight (pre-flight), during flight (in-flight) and post flight.
Pre-Flight Experience
Social media analytics for airlines involves analyzing the pre-flight experience, a good starting point for any airline passengers wishing to travel. This provides consumer insights into the airline ticketing purchasing experience, check-in experience and the travel experience in waiting lounges.
Here is a glimpse of social media analytics sourced from advance social listening tools after data-cleaning.
1. Affordable travel tickets for a full service carrier
Social Insights:
Unbeknownst to some, Malaysia Airlines is a full service carrier which offers meals, checked baggage and more included in the ticket price. Comparing against other full service airlines in its category, it offers mostly cheaper fares to similar destinations. Customers also frequently utilise the seasonal promotions for discounted tickets and good conversion rates for the Enrich Miles loyalty programme also provide flyers with the option to redeem their points for tickets, or gain better value-for-money purchases on their flights.
2. Great customer service from check-in crew and lounge staff
Social Insights:
Testimonials have been given on how the frontline service crew at the check-in counters have catered to the full needs of their customers, from seamless baggage check-in processes, to assisting those who require additional support such as passengers with special needs or conditions that require seats with extra leg-room, while also arranging for wheelchairs to be on standby from the departure hall to the aircraft and vice versa. The quality of the lounge service was also commendable, with polite staff on hand to attend to flyers’ needs.
In-Flight Experience
Social media sentiment analysis can be useful when applied to measure overall satisfaction of the airline’s in-flight experience, which brings the highest impact (and value) to airlines’s brand loyalty.
Our analysis recorded the highest number of social data at 15,000 mentions from passengers talking about their in-flight experiences when flying with Malaysia Airlines. Sentiment analysis showed more positive experience between 52% and 74% in areas such as in-flight meals, entertainment and services provided by the airline crews.
1. Wide Range of Menu Options
Social Insights:
The food served in-flight, notably local perennial dishes such as Satay, Chicken Rendang and Hainanese Chicken Rice seemed to be passengers’ favourites – continued to be mentioned by passengers throughout the long-haul flights
2. Entertainment & Service
Social Insights:
Several comments have pointed out the staff’s attentiveness towards passengers’ needs and towards the cleanliness of washrooms. The On-Demand Entertainment system aboard the planes also received mentions from passengers who appreciated the variety of media options.
Post-Flight Experience
Social media sentiment analysis can also be applied and may be useful to gauge the post-flight experience of airline passengers, especially during disembarkation – for example during luggage collection at the waiting area, handling of lost items, and value-added service availability (eg: wheel chair support) from the ground airport crews.
The use of social media listening and sentiment analytics have benefited the working partnership at the operational level between airline and airport crew to ensure a smooth disembarkation experience as part of the post-flight experience.
1. Disembarkation
Compliments were given towards the staff’s consideration in arranging mobility assistance such as wheelchairs and helping to wheel them from the planes to the terminals. Additionally, passengers have posted their gratitude towards several flight crew members who went to great lengths to arrange for passengers to claim their valuable belongings that were left behind in the planes.
Key Benefits of Social Media Monitoring and Listening for Airlines
Aviation experts believe combining social media listening tools and data analytics services brings a wide range of tangible benefits to overall airline operations and brand loyalty throughout the journey of passenger experience during pre-flight, in-flight and post flight.
“Digitalization of the aviation industry means more data including social data that can be meaningful to airlines operations to optimize cost where necessary” said Megat Adrian, Director of Strategy in the Malaysia Airports and a former business transformation executive from Malaysian Airlines.
1. Real-Time Crisis Management & Emergency Response
Aviation is a highly sensitive industry where crises—such as flight delays, cancellations, safety incidents, or service disruptions—can quickly escalate on social media. Airlines use social listening tools to detect negative sentiment, viral complaints, or emerging crises in real time. Immediate response strategies can prevent misinformation from spreading and allow airlines to address passenger concerns swiftly.
2. Customer Service & Passenger Engagement
Passengers frequently reach out to airlines via Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for flight updates, baggage issues, or service complaints. Social media monitoring enables airlines to track these messages, respond quickly, and improve overall customer experience. Automated chatbots and AI-driven sentiment analysis help prioritize urgent issues for a faster resolution.
3. Reputation & Brand Management
With airline reviews and passenger feedback widely shared online, brand reputation can be significantly impacted by social media trends. Monitoring tools allow airlines to measure brand sentiment, track competitor mentions, and identify areas that need service improvements. By engaging with positive feedback and addressing negative reviews, airlines can enhance customer trust and loyalty.
4. Competitive Analysis & Market Trends
Airlines use social listening to analyze competitors’ customer feedback, promotional campaigns, and new service launches. By benchmarking against industry leaders, airlines can refine their marketing strategies, improve pricing models, and introduce customer-centric initiatives that align with passenger expectations.
5. Marketing & Influencer Collaboration
Airlines can track trending travel hashtags, customer-generated content, and influencer campaigns to identify opportunities for brand engagement. Monitoring social media allows airlines to collaborate with travel bloggers, vloggers, and influencers to boost brand visibility and attract new customers.
6. Identifying Operational Issues & Service Improvements
Social media provides real-time insights into operational pain points, such as long check-in lines, inflight service quality, or baggage handling inefficiencies. Airlines can analyze recurring complaints and adjust their operations accordingly to enhance passenger satisfaction.
7. Crisis Communication & Public Relations
During incidents like security threats, technical failures, or global crises (e.g., COVID-19), social media monitoring helps airlines craft effective communication strategies. By proactively addressing passenger concerns and sharing official updates, airlines can manage public perception and prevent reputational damage.
Which is the best social media tool for airlines or aviation business?
According to many airlines experts, choose the best social listening tool or companies that provide data analytics services. This helps to improve work productivity and efficiency when dealing with issue management and rapid changes of consumer behaviour through its travel journey.
There are key features of a social media monitoring system for airlines:
- Real-Time Monitoring
- Clean Data
- Data Coverage
- Accurate Sentiment Detection
- Customized Reporting
- Domain (Industry) Experience
Here is a comprehensive guide on the technical features and functionalities of the best social media monitoring tool in Malaysia today.
Closing Thoughts
Social media monitoring has become an invaluable asset and tool for airlines but choosing the right news media monitoring or a social media listening tool, and partnering with aviation expert sentiment analytics companies are crucial for airlines to get the best value.
In the case of Malaysian Airlines, Berkshire Media’s unique social media sentiment analytics approach utilizes its proprietary sentiment detection engine SENTIROBO to help identify pockets of problems, customer issues, brand loyalty before it escalate to a larger issue, and this effectively boosts the level of public engagement and consumer confidence including brand loyalty.
Having a higher sentiment accuracy from social media aligns to MAB’s customer experience efforts by engaging its customers on its official social platforms, and ensuring the right decisions (or actions) are in place to mitigate recurring operational or perception-related issues.
Whether the airline’s valuable traits are worth investing in and refining to be able to flourish and regain a hold in the market to not just keep it afloat, but also contribute to economic development, is something that its stakeholders would have to determine and act upon quickly. It would of course be ideal for Malaysia to be able to retain its identity through impeccable service in the aviation industry, one that is highly visible in the eyes of the world.
Why Trust Us?
Berkshire Media is a leading social media monitoring service company with more than 10 years in managing reputation risks, issues management, research and elevating brand perception for the aviation and airline industry. The company is based in Malaysia and utilizes a tailored data-analytics solution to process data into actionable insights, actions, and recommendations – which are reported to be useful to the airlines operations. The founder, Shahid Shayaa, was a former airline industry expert in Malaysia Airlines with years of corporate experience related to customer service, brand building, campaigns, flight operations and operational airport improvements.
About the Author
Shahid Shayaa is the founder and managing director of Berkshire Media. He specializes in data-driven communication strategies and insights using social data analytics, social media monitoring tools and machine learning text algorithms for more than 13 years. As an expert in the field of media monitoring, issue management and reputation risks for companies, his deep involvement in various research studies in this field and published various scientific papers on social data analytics, sentiment analysis and back-end algorithms on consumer sentiment, emotions and behaviour for marketers and campaign managers.
