A US Airways employee who tweeted an X-rated photo to a customer will not lose their job as the company said sending the image was just an honest mistake.
The image, which shows a woman using a model airplane in a very unusual way, spread like wildfire around the world after it was tweeted from the airline's official account on Monday. However, the company said the tweet was sent in error by one of the members of its social media team and was not done maliciously.
Matt Miller, an American Airlines Group spokesman, again apologized for the image. The person who tweeted the image will keep their job.
"No, absolutely not," Miller said in response as to whether the employee would be let go. "It was an honest mistake."
Here is how the entire event broke down.
The social media worker had noticed and flagged the image, which was tweeted to the airline's account, as inappropriate. But instead of deleting the tweet, the person shared it while responding to a customer complaint. The initial complaint came from a woman who tweeted to the airline, "You ruined my spring break, I want some free stuff @USAirways H8 YOU".
US Airways responded, "We don't like to hear this, Alex. Please provide feedback to our Customer Relations team here," followed by a link to the pornographic image.
This tweet exchange quickly trended to the top of the Twitterverse.
The airline has since apologized on its Twitter account, which has also remained quiet since the incident took place.
American Airlines Group said it is now reviewing its social media process to ensure that this situation does not happen again.
This was the second social media event this week for American. Earlier in the week a 14-year-old Dutch girl playing a prank tweeted a threat to the airline.
The girl tweeted, "hello my name's Ibrahim and I'm from Afghanistan. I'm part of Al Qaida and on June 1st I'm gonna do something really big bye."
American immediately tweeted back that it takes all such threats seriously. The girl then panicked and responded with a stream of tweets that were both apologetic and bizarre.
