Twitter is having a curious effect on big corporations. The time lag between a customer needing service and getting it is getting shorter and shorter. When a single tweet can bounce around the internet and land in the CEOs lap in a matter of seconds, people start paying attention. Being a customer in the travel industry has never been more of a pleasure. For example, before Twitter, Jessica Gottlieb wouldn't have been able to do much about her two kids sitting on the tarmac, not taking off, on a recent Virgin America flight out of JFK. But through the wonders of the interwebs, she was able to tweet out the following missive to her almost 10,000 followers.

Dear Virgin Air, my children have been on the tarmac for one hour with 90 more minutes to wait. I am at JFK gate b25. Pls RT.

It's that last bit that's the most interesting, the Pls RT, because Re-Tweet is exactly what happened, and within minutes Virgin had phoned Gottlieb to reassure her that her kids would be fine. “They contacted the gate agent manager and explained to us the entire weather situation,” she says. “Within 20 minutes of that conversation, the plane took off.” That's some fancy and fast customer service if you ask me. In the past you might have gotten an apology some weeks later through a blog posting or email campaign, but this kind of instantaneous feedback is amazing. This is a game changer for travelers, social-media-wise. Southwest Airlines lists nearly 70,000 “fans” on its Facebook page, while Virgin Atlantic has close to 20,000 and American Airlines has more than 10,000. JetBlue leads the pack on Twitter, with well over 700,000 followers. Southwest has more than 100,000 followers. Join up and tweet -- it can't hurt. Unless you get sued.