It seems that everyone has started a blog in the last year. And why not? Applications such as Blogger.com and similar sites make it very easy to do, but this is a good news / bad news situation.

The good news is that anyone can set up a blog.

The bad news is that anyone can set up a blog.

And that holds true in the corporate world. Many corporations have set up official corporate blogs in the last year, including General Motors, Boeing (the May 20, 2008 entry has some great videos/photos of the 787!), Dell, and Wal-Mart.

And now airlines have also begun corporate blogs. The three that I have found are: Southwest Airlines, Delta Airlines, and American Airlines. Those three sites are Very Good, and EAT (Embarrassing, Awful, Terrible.)

Southwest Airlines – Nuts About Southwest: Southwest Airlines sells itself as the “Fun” airline, and that sense comes through strongly on this excellent blog. Nuts About Southwest has an interesting way of getting information: instead of it being a site for the staff in the corporate PR office to post ideas, scores of Southwest employees serves as the editors. And they not only write about the airline, but other fun things too.

On May 30 a Southwest employee posted the story about his visit to New York City to see the David Letterman Show. Another employee writes about serving on jury duty (they found the defendant guilty). But it also has corporate side featuring, You Tube videos posted by Christi Day, Public Relations Coordinator.

The latest video has Christi visiting with Southwest’s Culture Committee in Los Angeles on Hokey Day. (This is the day when Committee members meet every Southwest flight into Los Angeles: they clean the plane and bring food for the flight attendants and cockpit crew.) Previous videos included: the Culture Committee flying to Oklahoma City to greet customers at the airport and thank them for flying Southwest — they gave the passengers free snacks and made laminated luggage tags from business cards; and another video showing Airport Operations at John Wayne Airport in Orange County. I have to admit it looks like Christi has the number one fun job at Southwest!

The site features a news section: some articles are very serious and business oriented, such as Limited Time Promotion on Business Select Fares and Southwest: First and second checked-bags still free. But the less serious articles are also there, including Southwest Airlines to celebrate National Donut Day. Many other sites would not carry an article like that, but this is Southwest and those articles fit its corporate attitude.

I particularly like the fact that anyone, after registering, can post their stories and photos on the site. As Southwest says, “This is as much your site as it is ours… We want to build a personal relationship between our Team and you, and we need your participation. Everyone is encouraged to join in, and you don’t need to register to read, watch, or comment. However, if you would like to share photos or videos or rate a post, among other things, you will need to complete a profile.”

Nuts About Southwest is a Very Good blog!

Delta Airlines – Under The Wing: Delta has done a good job with their blog. It’s not as much fun as Southwest’s, but anyone who has flown the two airlines would probably expect that. After all, I don’t remember the flight attendants on Delta singing songs, or asking everyone to “move to the right side of the aircraft so that we’ll look full to the Continental flight next to us.” I’ve heard both of those things SW.

Delta takes a more business-like approach, but that is not bad. Their site provides a lot of good information about the airline. As they say, “The Delta blog will take you under the wing and behind the scenes sharing stories on ideas, changes, our people, and their working lives.”

This is not a site for the corporate PR department to spout the company line. Many Delta employees post items on Under the Wing, but they are not the only ones to post. If you are a baseball fan, you will enjoy the stories by Jeff Francouer, outfielder for the Atlanta Braves.

Under the Wing has one feature I particularly like, The Blogroll. This is a list of over 30 blogs about travel, aircraft, and airlines. Some of the sites listed include Boeing, Marriott Hotels, Conde Nast Traveler, and the Lonely Planet Travel blog. They even list the Southwest blog on their site. The Blogroll is a great resource.

Another very strong feature on the Delta blog is the Categories listing. Previous posts are divided into categories, allowing you to see the ones that interest you most. Click on “Flight Attendants” to read about the training one must take to become a Delta FA. “Planeguage” takes you to very entertaining animated videos about flying — after watching them I will forever be aware of the dreaded Domino affect. In all, there are 19 Categories listed, I think you will find it to be an excellent source of information.

Under the Wing is also Very Good blog!

And now, the last entry.

American Airlines – American Airlines AA Conversation: My parents always told me, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything.” By that standard, I can’t say anything about this terrible site.

It’s obvious that Delta and Southwest operate their blogs, the sites are hosted on the airlines’ domains. (southwest.com and delta.com). The American Airlines blog is hosted on blogger.com, using the cheap blogger template. There are no photographs, no links, it doesn’t even have the AA logo.

So, the question is this: Is this really an American Airlines site, or is it something that was done by someone as a hoax? And the answer is, I don’t know.

Billy S. claims to be the author, and “the director of corporate communications, promotions and advertising for AA.” If so, he should know better than to do this.

The site went online after American had returned the 300 MD-80s to service in April. Four messages were posted, featuring pompous comments like “We NEED to continue the conversation, and we need to keep it going permanently.” Apparently, Billy did not really mean that: only four messages were posted, and none since April 28.

It makes the following comment seem absurd. “It’s time for us to officially join the mighty blogosphere, and that’s just what we have done. We’re going to take this “starter” blog and beef it up. And make sure our readers know that this is real folks at American blogging …and not someone’s nephew.” If this is an example of them beefing it up, then I can only quote the great Wendy’s commercial from 20 years ago and ask “Where’s the beef?”

If American Airlines AA Conversation is really an American Airlines site, and they really mean the things they said, they need to follow through on their proclamations and act like they are serious about blogging.

How do they do that? They start by moving the site to the AA.com domain. Then they redesign the site so that it doesn’t look like something done by a 13-year-old amateur. Then they need to provide meaningful content with frequent updates.

If Billy S. is who he says he is, I suspect he started this from home one day. After posting his four messages he showed it to his superiors at corporate headquarters and they told him they had more important things to do. And with that, he dropped it.

AA needs to either fix this site, or kill it. And do it quickly.

American Airlines AA Conversation is the EAT site: Embarrassing. Awful. Terrible.

Update: American Airlines has taken their blog offline. Good move.