Ms. Stines, 53, of Dallas, begins her day by scrolling through Snap, a program that allows her to interact with customers on Twitter. Snap displays users’ bios, their number of followers, and the history of their conversation with American Airlines. The social care team fields 4,500 tweets per day and a clock on her screen indicated the average response time. On this morning, it was 15 minutes below the 30-minute response time goal the team has set for itself. No turbulence so far.

After scrolling for a few minutes, Ms. Stines saw a tweet from someone who she suspected had a lot of “chimers,” or followers who like to “chime in” on conversations. Chimers tend to follow those with big social media presences: TV stars and professional video game players and Instagram celebrities, she explained. She likes to take care of users with potential chimers quickly, she said, to avoid future problems.

When it comes to customer service, travelers are increasingly skipping calls to the airlines and are instead taking their requests to Twitter and Facebook. Airlines are responding by expanding their social media staff and empowering them with the resources they need to aid travelers.

For customers who are finding it more and more difficult to get a person on the phone, social media frequently offers real-time answers to pressing travel questions. For the airlines, “social care,” is about efficiency. In the span of a few minutes, a representative working on Twitter can check on a traveling child, locate a lost bag, hear out a venting customer, and upgrade a seat — all practically at the same time . (On TripAdvisor recently, one traveler noted that when his Delta flight was canceled and he tried to rebook on the phone, a recording informed him there was a two-hour wait before his call would be answered. Going to Twitter instead, and direct-messaging Delta, eventually resolved the situation, with a new flight soon rebooked.)