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MUMBAI: London’s Heathrow airport does it, and so do Orlando International, San Francisco airport, Amsterdam’s Schiphol and many others. They are all live on Facebook and Twitter, linking directly with passengers. Mumbai airport became the first in India to join the league, as it went live with tweets and wall posts, taking in comments, compliments and suggestions from users on Monday.

Passengers who tweeted that they were at Mumbai airport or going there received welcome messages from the airport. Philip Carter, a passenger, responded with a tweet: ’You need to do something about your toilet availability. Too many under repair.’

Mumbai airport, which took off with about 75 followers on day one, replied that his complaint had been registered. There were tweets to which the airport did not even have to reply, as others did the job for them. A pilot, in response to a tweet about runway conditions, said Mumbai airport "has pretty good maintenance schedule, every Friday 2hr scheduled closure for Runway 14/32 and on Tuesday/Saturday for Runway09/32".

"Being present on this platform will allow us to engage with passengers and our customers in real time," said R K Jain, CEO, Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd (MIAL). "The launch of this initiative also gives us an opportunity to become an integral part of customer conversations, get feedback and respond to their comments directly," he added.

The feeds (http://twitter.com/CSIAMumbai and https://www.facebook.com/CSIAMumbai) offer updated information on services and latest developments at the airport. It will be a platform for feedback on facilities and services, all in real time, an MIAL spokesperson said.

Additionally, passengers remain connected and have access at all times to information on special offerings, retail options and duty-free shopping at Mumbai airport. Though handling queries has been outsourced, an airport spokesperson said responses are sent only after monitoring.