US man bears brunt of Qantas Twitter rage

Alan Joyce got an earful on Twitter about the decision to ground Qantas planes. Pity he's just a dude in California - and not the real CEO. Photo / file

Qantas was the talk of social networking sites at the weekend, after CEO Alan Joyce took the unprecedented step of grounding the airline's domestic and international aircraft.

Flights are expected to resume mid-this afternoon after a court in Australia ordered the company and unions to find a solution to the dispute - and get flying.

But that wasn't before disgruntled Twitter account holders - looking for the Joyce's personal account - made it the fourth most popular trend topic in Australia on Sunday.

A pity then, that many mistakenly homed in on Alan Joyce of Stanford, California.

The American Mr Joyce acquired more than 300 extra Twitter followers over the past 24 hours after tweeters confused him with the Qantas boss.

"Oh dear," he tweeted around 11am AEDT on Sunday (1pm NZT).

"I think Australia is waking up again ... time to prepare for another deluge of tweets."

Mr Joyce later tweeted that Qantas had contacted him "with a graceful apology", which could indicate not all his new followers were friendly.

Also making an appearance on Twitter was a fake Alan Joyce, whose account described the tweeter as "leading Qantas Airway to its biggest disaster yet and then on to the next".

The fake Joyce was quickly acquiring followers, up from about 300 on Saturday evening to almost 2000 on Sunday afternoon, as he racked up more than 470 tweets.

Qantas itself was also a major topic on Twitter, with many tweeters expressing their disappointment with the airline's action.

Among them was NSW federal Labor MP Mike Kelly, who tweeted his followers: "Finding it increasingly difficult 2 accept credibility of Alan Joyce. Worried we will see the flying roo give way 2 the flying pig emblem."

- AAP