Is this the worst Twitter reply of all time? US Airways social media fail as airline tweets XXX-rated picture to customers complaining their flight was late

US Airways left red-faced after pornographic picture sent attached to replies about late flights to customers

The image and tweet was online for around 22-minutes - which was enough time to cause a Twitter frenzy

The image was apparently tweeted by mistake by a social media employee of the giant airline

Offensive image originally sent to US Airways partner American Airlines in bad taste

Re-sent to appalled customers in error



US Airways has issued an apology and begun an investigation



US Airways has profusely apologized after an extremely graphic picture of a woman engaged in a sex act with a model Boeing 777 was tweeted to a customer who complained about her Spring Break flight.



The young woman, Alex, tweeted directly to US Airways early on Monday morning that her flight to Portland had been delayed - demanding 'free stuff' because her vacation was off to a bad start.



In reply, the airlines official Twitter account replied, 'We don’t like to hear this, Alex. Please provide feedback to our Customer Relations team here,' and attached a photograph of the nude woman out to its 418,000 followers this afternoon.

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Graphic: US Airways has apologized after their official Twitter account tweeted an extremely inappropriate photo (which MailOnline has blanked over) on Monday afternoon

US Airways have not explained why the photograph was sent out, but have offered a sincere and full apology.



'We apologize for an inappropriate image recently shared as a link in one of our responses. We’ve removed the tweet and are investigating.'

Of course the tweet was deleted but spent 22 minutes online - enough time to cause a frenzy of sharing among incredulous users of the social media app.



When reached for comment, US Airways admited they were aware of the situation but could not explain it as of Monday afternoon.

Incredulous: The public's reaction to US Airways staggering tweet ranged from humor to sympathy for whoever was responsible

The replies to the offensive tweet ranged from laughter to outrage.



It seems the tweet was originally sent as a bad joke to American Airlines and presumably someone at US Airways tried to copy and paste it to send to a friend, but inadvertently tweeted it out to genuine customers.

Another unsatisfied customer: US Airways sent the same picture to customer Elle Rafter after she complained about her late flight to Portland

So so sorry: US Airways rushed to control the damage from their outrageous tweet - but the damage was done

It also appears that US Airways tweeted the photo to multiple customers as their bungled response to the original tweet continued.

The image in question was attached to a tweet sent to @AmericanAir at 1:59PM, 30 minutes before US Airways sent out a tweet with the same image attached. American Airlines and US Airways use the same social media tool, SNAP100.

The timing was particularly amusing since it overlapped with the announcement of the Pulitzer Prize winners and gained more traffic online.



The tweet is even more embarrassing for US Airways as they prepare for their merger with American Airlines which will create the world's largest airline company.

US Airways eventually said sorry in full for the gross error.

'We apologize for the inappropriate image we recently shared in a Twitter response. Our investigation has determined that the image was initially posted to our Twitter feed by another user. We captured the tweet to flag it as inappropriate.



'Unfortunately the image was inadvertently included in a response to a customer. We immediately realized the error and removed our tweet. We deeply regret the mistake and we are currently reviewing our processes to prevent such errors in the future.'

