So the reason for my frustration with Delta's website yesterday was due to the fact they were putting the new site up.
1Congrats - it actually works. However I would like to have the old one back again please.
The login is a little more clunky. OK I can live with that. There is no where to indicate that by entering the city exposes a new set of choices on what type of trip I can book.
They do go on to tell me how much they have changed and how the benefits are therefore me....
Let me give you an example...
Here is what they tell you...
SkyMiles Dashboard: See your mileage balance at a glance—and if you're a Medallion member, you can see exactly how close you are to reaching the next Medallion level.
Hmmm not so. So probably that is crashing right now because this is what I see when I click on skymiles (and yes I have tried it in 4 browsers so its the same).
As you can see although they know I am a platinum member - they are asking me to join Skymiles. Oh dear! In fairness to DL - they do say that they are working on it.
My assessment after an initial spin around the website is as follows:
The top level nav is good. The rest of the website is largely unchanged. So the other elements are familiar. There are new ad serving opportunities that didn't exist before.
As to the core value of providing access to the results I want to see... well that is unchanged. The resulting system still works on a hard and fast LOWEST POSSIBLE result without allowing me to shop with different parameters. Thus the ITA shopping engine in Orbitz offers much better results that I cannot get through either the schedule or pricing path inside the DL site. So in my opinion the ITA QPX engine is superior to the Travelport engine used on the DL website. Sabre's engine which is getting rarer these days still powers the Travelocity site and gives more options but not necessarily better results.
Its also pretty slow. But this is the first day so I hope it gets better but initial analysis indicates the pages are very heavy to load.
So at present I give DL a failing grade and I want the old site back. It seems this is going to be a work in progress for a while as they go through the whole site and fix things
Right now there is a LOT of things to fix. Basic logic is failing. However I persevered and was able to make a booking. Delta should be giving free upgrades to everyone who tried to book and failed.
Cheers
Thanks for reading - private comments please to professorsabena@gmail.com
1 - See article "
Deaf, dumb and blind - airlines and passengers." on the left
T2Impact is a business development, technology and strategic consulting group focused on helping firms to accelerate their growth either in new geographies or with new products and services. Our name derives from the companys focus; accelerating time and getting from idea to impact quickly for its clients.
We provide a full line of strategic planning services, including marketing plan development, joint venture opportunity evaluation, market and competitive research, process re-engineering, business plan validation and execution.
www.T2Impact.com
