• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer, September 20, 2013

Qantas is testing technology that allows it to monitor social media conversations in airport lounges, according to Australian business magazine Business Review Weekly, which first reported the news.

The technology, created by Australian start-up Local Measure, uses geo-location data to pick up social conversations even if the passenger doesn’t mention Qantas by name (after all, just because you’re sitting in a Qantas lounge doesn’t mean you’re going to be talking about Qantas using a helpful #Qantas hashtag). Of course, that requires passengers to share their whereabouts by activating automatic geo-location sharing on Twitter, or checking in on Foursquare or Facebook.

The airline is using information collected by Local Measure for its content marketing strategy; according to Local Measure the large majority -- 90% -- of user-generated content on social media is positive (given my own experiences with airlines I find that a bit hard to believe, but I’ve never flown Qantas, which could be some sort of magical experience). By the same token the data is also useful for customer service and facilities maintenance, as passengers may mention cold coffee or ugly furniture; towards that end Qantas is giving lounge managers direct access to the Local Measure feed, although only the social media team can post responses online.

Qantas hasn’t always been so social media savvy. Back in 2011 the airline came in for quite a bit of online hazing with a Twitter campaign which invited the public to heap praise on the airline’s luxury offerings in their Tweets. The winning flattery would be rewarded with prizes including Qantas pajamas and a “luxury amenity kit.” Unfortunately the campaign came less than a month after a union strike that Qantas management countered with a total shutdown of the company, grounding flights and hugely inconveniencing thousands of customers who had to re-book on competing airlines.