A computer glitch that caused passenger data to disappear off of United Airlines computer systems caused the airline to have to cancel several dozen flights Friday night and delay about 105 more worldwide, leaving thousands stranded.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations around United Airlines online.

United Airlines buzz

United Airlines, which generally does not generate a significant amount of chatter online, experienced a major spike in conversations this weekend.

United Airlines sentiment

Unfortunately for United Airlines, the conversations were almost all negative. Mentions of United Airlines on Saturday were 88% negative, with the computer glitch appearing in most conversations.

The five-hour computer outage that virtually shut down United Airlines is a stark reminder of how dependent airlines have become on technology.

Dave Carroll claimed that United Airlines broke his $3,500 guitar on a flight from Nova Scotia to Nebraska last year. His phone call and e-mail complaints over the next several months didn’t earn Carroll so much as a travel voucher.

So Carroll and his band, Sons of Maxwell, recorded a song about their misfortune called “United Breaks Guitars” and posted a video on YouTube, with a goal to achieve a million Web hits.

Upon seeing the video, United immediately contacted Carroll to make it right. Since being posted on July 6, the YouTube video has already had more than a quarter million views in only three days. The video earned a 5 star rating with more than 7,000 ratings and nearly 3,000 comments.

We used Social Radar to analyze web chatter on United over the last week. The trend chart below shows a dramatic spike in overall chatter in the days following the video post.

We also analyzed topics of discussion around United Airlines, and nearly every topic of conversation in the past few days has centered around Carroll and his broken guitar.

By ignoring Carroll’s e-mails and phone calls but responding to his YouTube video, is United encouraging customers to use social media outlets to complain publicly?