Websites of Three Airlines Companies - Assignment Example

 Introduction Information systems have always been important elements to an organization’s survival. With advances in information technology, an effective computer-based information system has become an essential business asset. To create an effective information system and to make ‘presence’ online, business organizations created their own websites to provide customers and the general public with useful information. By developing websites, business organizations meant to set interaction with people, procedures and technologies that together collect, process, store and distribute information to support control, decision making and management in the organization. This paper will review the websites of three airlines companies in relation to the way they managed their information with their web portals. By comparing the websites of Emirates Airways, Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines, this paper will discuss information managing practices employed by these companies with the help of their websites. Emirates Airways- http://www.emirates.com The title in the website of Emirates Airways appeared interesting, attractive and mindboggling. The image with the title ‘Hello 2015’ was truly influencing a visitor’s confidence, expectation and value perception about the services the company would offer in coming years. There was another button near to this title- ‘Explore our special fares’ that will certainly catch almost everyone’s attraction towards air-fares. In airline industry, perhaps one of the most important factors that affect competition is ‘fares’. Low-fare in airline industry is an attraction. Both the main title and the button showing ‘explore our special services’ were linked to ‘featured Fares’ in a new a page. This title redirects a visitor to a detailed list showing various destinations and featured fares to travel to these destinations. The title was really informative, because, a website visitor can easily go through various destinations available for travelling in all different continents along with different ranges of fares for these destinations. This table is given in Emirates website with a view to help passengers or tour planners to discover new places and experience new adventures by taking the advantages of Emirate’s new special offers of attractive fares. This page provides 7 titles, destinations, starting fare, class, book by date, depart between date, fare conditions and start booking. The last two titles- fare conditions and start booking- are arranged to redirect a visitor to a new page with process of starting the booking or to review conditions that may apply to fares. Emirate’s website is generally informative, because, its home page gives links to various information related to additional features in its flights, special offers to certain destinations and about Emirate’s inspirational interactive map that would give help people compare prices and search for destinations. One article titled ‘Say Hello to free Wi-Fi in the Sky’ explains Emirate’s Wi-Fi feature on most of Emirate’s A380 aircraft’s boards to enable travelers to blog, post or tweet from his seat by enjoying 10 MB of data for free or to buy 500 MB for just $1. Other articles in the home page titled ‘Oslo, Norway’ and ‘Fly Emirates to Brussels’ talk about Emirate’s offers to Oslo and Brussels along with luxurious first class private suites and flat-bed seats available to these destinations. Emirate’s websites neither gives author’s name nor email or other details to contact their authors if visitors have to contact them for further clarification. One unique feature is that images and illustrations outlined in its webpage is quite self-explanatory. Layouts Website layout is interesting. An eye-catching image with title of ‘Hello 2015’ is truly amazing. Navigator on the top of the page includes Emirate’s experience, Destinations, Special offers, Plan & Book, Help centre and Emirate’s Skywards and Business rewards. It is arranged with drop-down menu that gives further details on each of them. For instance, ‘Emirate’s Experience’ involves three main categories namely Cabin features, dining and flying with Emirates. Each of these involves various titles, and they all redirect a visitor to a new page with sufficient details and information. There is no introduction or a brief outline to give a summary of objectives to a visitor, but, the site is designed in a way that any visitor can easily understand Emirate’s purpose from this unique design and layout. Its images, layout and information are meant to promote its business, by attracting travelers to special offers of fares. All the links are found working well. Its sub-pages never took long time to load. All the sub-topics linked to main page were developed well. In short, Emirate’s website is designed and developed by considering various factors that can influence a visitor’s decision making regarding his tour planning or travel packaging. Qatar Airways- http://www.qatarairways.com The official website of Qatar Airways- www.qatarairways.com is found very interesting for that it has six large marquee images on the top of the home page and all the images illustrate its highly advanced and innovative flights, sophisticated features of business class, customer loyalty program of earning Qmiles and unique travelling experiences. On the top of the page was online-booking facility that will be expanded only on mouse-click on it, and it was not a kind of disturbance as may be the case with many other websites. All the titles were interesting. When compared with Emirate’s website, Qatar Airway’s website gives some most important information on the left side of the page under the titles of travel alerts, careers, baggage allowances, mobile services, portable electronic devices and special services. Route map will be an important requirement for some visitors who want to plan a tour package with Qatar Airways. One unique content in the website is the facility to apply for visa to Qatar, which is perhaps one of the most unique features of an airline’s website, especially due to that there are large numbers of applications to Qatar visa in recent years for its emerging business opportunities. The website and all its titles are very informative. However, as compared to Emirate’s website, Qatar Airways needs to give more information about additional features and fare offerings. In a first glance, it seems that Qatar Airways has no special fare offers, even though it may not be the case. For articles, names of authors are not given. However, a link is provided to enable visitors to contact local Qatar Airways office on the right side of the article. On the very top of the page, there is a navigation bar with titles Book, Travel, Holidays, Privilege Club and Help. This navigation bar includes more titles attached to a drop-down menu. There are details about Qatar Airway’s special offers, booking information, corporate solutions, baggage allowance; airways service experiences, bonus Qmiles and so on. So, the website is very informative. Website layout Website’s design and layout are found trendy and innovative. In general, there were no images or illustrations that might distract a visitor’s mind. All the images on the marquee slides were sufficient to give true experiences of a virtual tour. There were multiple links to the home page, redirecting to various sub-headings and sub-pages that give further details regarding offers, rewards, booking facilities and so on. All the sub-topics linked to home pages were developed well. The webpage and all its sub-pages were loading faster. It didn’t give more links to other external websites, but there were few like its Facebook page, twitter page, and all they were found working better. Singapore Airlines- http://www.singaporeair.com The website of Singapore Airline is found quite different from the websites of Emirates Airways and Qatar Airways in terms of its extensive focus on travel booking and tour packaging facilities. The website is attractive in terms of its general outlook and arrangements for online booking. Online ticket booking portal is placed on the top of the home page with facilities of search flights, online check-in, manage booking and check flight status. There are articles and posts on the bottom of the page, and they all are found highly informative. Posts such as ‘Changi Transit Promo’, ‘Join the Singapore Airlines India Affiliate Program’ ‘Fly to USA’ and Singapore Airlines introduces A380’ etc give right information to readers and visitors to learn about how Singapore Airlines operates and what additional features can be expected from flying Singapore Airlines. Author’s names for these articles were not given. There are no contact details too. There are three marquee images on the top right side of the home page. These images are truly striking for that they give meanings that were intended. Their captions can be read as, ‘We search for familiar flavors to make you feel at home’, ‘we select the softest leather to make you feel at home’ and ‘we find the films you love, to make you feel at home’. These captions give some messages about Singapore Airline’s services that would give home-feeling to its passengers. These images are not distracting reader’s attention, but rather, take them to think about how Singapore Airlines will give values through its services. Website Layouts In general, the website layout looks good, though not as equally good as the websites of Emirate and Qatar Airways. The main navigator is placed on the top of the home page with titles of Special Offers, plan and Book, Flying with us, Travel information, and PPS Club. These titles are attached to drop-down menu giving further links and information. For instance, the title Plan and Book involves ticket and tour planning as well as booking details between various destinations from all seven continents. There are multiple links and they are found developed well. the text is in normal size so that it can be read easily. All the links to both internal and external sites are found working better. Objectivity of the Websites A website can be said to be objective when its contents are not influenced by emotions or personal prejudices or the desire to influence its reader. If the contents in the webpage are given with a view to sway a reader can be considered biased. In terms of information the websites of Emirates Airways, Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines delivers to its readers, it is verily clear that these websites are not biased, since there are no wrong or misguiding information to sway its readers. In Emirate’s website, one single view point regarding the future perspective of superior services that it prospers to offer in coming years is highlighted. Similarly, in Qatar Airway’s website, one single view point in relation to excessive business class features and facilities in highlighted. It is the ‘feeling at home’ that has been focused in the website of Singapore Airlines. As there is no more than one viewpoint that has been highlighted, the websites are objective. All the three websites presented facts. It is very evident from the images and illustrations. Images showing experiences of passengers onboard using Wi-Fi, enjoying business class features and ‘feeling of at-home are truly facts, not opinions. The overall messages from all the three websites are unbiased, as there is no misguiding information, with strongly worded statements claiming an absolute certainty of any conclusion. Website Evaluation Criteria Authority, Accuracy and Objectivity are the major three criteria to evaluate a website. Authority: It is related to verifying who is making the information in the website. It is about assessing what are their credentials, who is the publisher, an official source or an authorized person etc. Objectivity: It is about verifying a website based on whether the website talks about more than one view point or attempts to influence the reader through emotion or personal prejudice. Accuracy: It is about verifying whether the information given in the website is accurate, by checking in errors. Entrepreneurship An entrepreneur is a person with certain skills and talents that enables him to find further business opportunities to exploit them, by creatively thinking to innovate or to take risks associated with business projects. As an entrepreneur, I found that a virtual tour or a virtual Flying is missing in all the three websites. I would recommend that all these websites should provide a virtual tour with sufficient streaming video or other gaming software that would take readers to truly experiencing a flight journey along with unique features that each Airline company provides its customers with. Read More