Southwest Airlines, one of the nation’s top airlines in driving customers to its web site, has overhauled its home page.
But despite its new look, Southwest is still the only major US airline that does not offer instant access to its bookings directly from its home page.
Customers still must make at least one click at Southwest.com before they get to pages for booking and flight schedules.
“With Southwest’s first major redesign of its Internet presence in nearly five years, you might think that home-page booking would be the first thing Southwest’s Web designers would add. But they didn’t,” observed The Dallas Morning News.
Other major US carriers include at least a small booking window on their main pages.
Why didn’t Southwest make that change with its redesign?
Anne Murray, Southwest’s senior director of online marketing, told the newspaper that the airline made the move after customer input. She said:
“It was very clear in the usability study that it wasn’t an even decision on preference, open or closed.”
The company obviously decided to stick with the status quo.
Web bookings are especially important for Southwest because the airline gets 70% of its revenue from bookings made through its website. Just 26% of its tickets are sold through travel agents or the airline’s phone sales centers.
Report by David Wilkening
