The @Darwinairport Social Media Story Part 3

Making Everyone ‘Appy – How the 4-day-old Darwin Airport app kept travellers informed through Cyclone Carlos

On 11 February 2011, Darwin Airport became the first airport in Australia to launch its own ‘app’ for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

Built by Captovate, the app featured live arrival and departure times, a car park calculator and news section connecting users to the airport’s Twitter feed (@darwinairport).

Three days later in the early morning of 14th February, the Operations team at Darwin Airport were keeping an eye on a tropical low that had formed over the Top End near Katherine. History taught us that we probably had a few days until it formed into a cyclone. However, by 10.30am, Darwin Airport had moved to Stage One of its Cylone Plan and Darwin was on cyclone watch.

That afternoon saw an upgrade to Stage Two and the speed at which the cyclone was moving towards Darwin was something we'd never seen before.

And so it was that mobile communication devices came into their own. As some of us left work that afternoon knowing we probably wouldn't get access to our office again for some time, communication to the public and media about airport operations was going to be predominently via our Twitter account (including its feed to the app) and the website.

Between the 14th and 17th February, the Darwin Airport team Tweeted 48 messages to their followers to update them on the status of airport operations. The messages included flights cancellations and last arrivals, roads being affected around the airport, links to the Bureau of Meteorology cyclone tracking map and even information about intermittent mobile reception across Darwin.

The Darwin Airport website received more than 145,000 views (or hits) over the 3 days and the app was downloaded nearly 2,000 times. The website updates were assisted by 24 hour round-the-clock backup support by the Captovate team, including changing web banners at 2am when the airport closed.

In total Darwin Airport was closed for nearly 33 hours due to the wind speed and unpredictability of Cyclone Carlos. It made it's way over Darwin City on the evening of the 15th, headed out to sea then turned around and came back.

Followers of the airport tweets were incredibly grateful for the up-to-date news and even sent us in suggestions that helped our tweets and news updates to be more effective.

Since Cyclone Carlos, Twitter is no longer the black sheep of the airport communications team. And the app? The app is Darwin Airport's pride and joy.

Stay tuned for Part 4...

Is your business scared of Facebook? So was Darwin Airport, in the beginning.