As Southwest Airlines, one of the four major airlines in the United States, increasingly interacts with customers outside of social media, the company has significantly reduced its advertising spending on Musk's X platform. This is undoubtedly adding insult to injury for X, who is currently trapped in a wave of customer escape.
"Our (advertising) expenses have significantly decreased (on the X platform)," Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan said in a media interview on Wednesday. However, he also added that besides X, the company's advertising expenses on other platforms will also decrease, "we are currently evaluating this."
For a long time, airlines have been communicating with passengers through social media. For example, airline customers may use X to express complaints about travel or other issues and attract the attention of customer service personnel monitoring social media feedback.
However, the way Southwest Airlines customers interact with the airline has changed. Southwest Airlines has been enhancing digital communication with customers through new features in SMS and mobile applications, and continues to develop tools to enable passengers to solve more problems on their personal devices.
"We still have some customer relations personnel focused on ensuring that we have access to these customers," Southwest Airlines' Chief Communications Officer Whitney Eichinger said of X, "but I think we are seeing fewer and fewer comments from customers on X, and more and more people leaving this platform."
X dilemma intensifies
Recently, due to Musk's anti Semitic controversy, many major advertising clients have fled the X platform, feeling uneasy about the way X handles content review under Musk's leadership. According to insiders, X's advertising revenue in 2023 may only be about $2.5 billion, a significant decline compared to previous years.
Although Southwest Airlines has significantly reduced its advertising spending on X, this is not due to resistance towards X, but more related to changes in the way the company interacts with customers. However, this undoubtedly exacerbates X's predicament.
Southwest Airlines also stated that the company is still "evaluating" whether to stop advertising on X.
In contrast, Southwest Airlines' competitor, United Airlines, stopped advertising on X by the end of 2022. Delta Air Lines has not yet reduced its advertising spending on X, but the company points out that it also provides assistance to passengers through applications and platforms such as Facebook.