Twitter Forces American Airlines to Play Better Music on their Planes

If you travel by air, you may be irritated by the horribly bland music some airlines play through the aircraft during the boarding and disembarking process. Air travel can already be a trying experience and this music doesn’t help.

Enter Twitter. American Airlines noticed they were getting a ton of tweets directed at the music that filtered through the cabin during the boarding and disembarking process.  You know what I’m talking about: anonymous tinkling pianos and bland instrumental versions of various Top 40 hits. No one enjoys this kind of stuff.

But hand it to American. They listened–and they’ve changed. Now the during the boarding process you can hear Bon Iver, Haim and other interesting indie artists.  Quartz reports:

“The decision to change to the lesser-known indie music was a reaction to customers’ complaints, which included boredom,” according to an American Airlines employee newsletter article, which was posted to Twitter. “Since the switch, complaints about our cabin music have decreased, and compliments have increased, according to a social media analysis.” The company uses a range of tools—including ad-hoc searches, a proprietary tool for listening and response, and commercial software called Netbase for research.

Read more at Quartz here.