Furious British Airways passenger uses promoted tweet to complain to world about 'lost luggage'

When disgruntled air passenger Hasan Syed's luggage was apparently lost by British Airways, he was determined to make his complaints heard.

So rather than directing his fury to the company's Customer Services team, he took his grievance to a whole new level - by buying a promoted tweet and getting his complaint seen around the world.

Mr Syed, using the Twitter handle @HVSVN, used the promoted tweet to air his complaint in front of millions worldwide.

Promoted tweets, purchased on Twitter's self-serve ad platform, appear at the top of users' feeds and are usually bought by huge corporations or ad agencies.

My Syed told Mashable he bought the promoted tweet in the UK and New York markets on Monday night, but would not confirm how much he paid.

He said online last night: 'Don't fly @BritishAirways. Their customer services is horrendous.'

His tweet bombarded British Airways with bad PR - with the airline eventually responding and promising to 'look into' the claim.

The @BritishAirways Twitter account responded on Tuesday morning: 'Sorry for the delay in responding, our twitter feed is open 0900-1700 GMT. Please DM your baggage ref and we'll look into this.'

Mr Syed had launched into an angry Twitter tirade against the firm before their response.

He had tweeted: 'I refuse to stop running Twitter Ads until @British_Airways finds the lost luggage.'

A British Airways spokesperson said: 'We would like to apologise to the customer for the inconvenience caused.

'We have been in contact with the customer and the bag is due to be delivered today. '