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The strike action that has dogged Australian airliner Qantas has led to the creation of several fake Twitter accounts.

Around 80,000 passengers were stranded after the airline grounded all its aircraft over the weekend in a bid to abate union strikes.

Qantas attracted criticism for providing inadequate information to passengers throughout the crisis. And conversations about Qantas dominated the microblogging site over the weekend with six out of the top ten trending issues in Australia relating to the dispute, according to an analysis conducted by Meltwater.

There were more than 41,000 mentions of the row on Saturday and more than 26,000 on Sunday.

Several new accounts have been created poking fun at Qantas and its chief executive, Alan Joyce, including @AlanJoyceCEO and @Qantas_VH_OQA, @Qantas_PIA and @SaveQantas, which says in its description: 'Qantas, our national carrier, is close to becoming an endangered species as a result of years of greed and bad management decisions..'

The fake account pertaining to the airline's chief executive, which was set up on Saturday, had attracted thousands of followers by the end of play on Monday (Australia time). A Facebook page with posting calls for Joyce to be 'locked out' was also set up and has attracted more than 5, 500 likes.

Steve Purvinas, federal secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers' Association, has also fallen victim to parody. Among the tweets from @Steve_ALAEA, was: 'A couple members of my union have been calling me up today saying they don't like this 'work all day' thing. Working on a new to strike' and 'right, time for this rabbit [sic] unionist to get some Zs. No A380 beds for us tonight, just some lost blankets atop a baggage cart.'

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