In the grand tradition of airline launch ambiguity, Elysair is kicking it up a notch. We reported on the French airline last month. It's set to become something like the MAXjet or Eos of Paris, with all-business-class flights to and from there and the U.S. There's a big difference between MAXjet and Eos, but because Elysair has yet to release its seating plans, we don't know quite what they're going for.
But while looking for more information on Elysair's supposed December launch, we stumbled upon their killer website, which was beamed up straight from 1994 or '95. Perhaps they're spending so much money or gorgeous seats that they can't afford more than a megabyte of server space? Whatever the case, we love the "Under Construction" graphic, probably because we had one just like it on our very first homepage. The only thing they're missing is an embedded Blind Melon MIDI.
There's no techie competition between Elysair and Virgin America, but the lesson learned from both is the same: to calculate an airline's actual launch date, you will need a TI-83 for some serious multiplication and addition action.
It's out with the old and in with the new for JetBlue, who recently revamped its website. Gone is the simple, subtly sexy veneer of yore; the new look is friendlier, and tries a bit harder to be hip. It's the biggest and most obvious change to the site since the airline's launch six years ago.
New features include a streamlined front page flight search (no menu scrolling required), a blog (or flog, really, since they're calling it a "flight log") for CEO David Neeleman, and lots of orange. Neeleman's flog may be buried under a tiny "About JetBlue" link on the bottom of the front page, but, provided he plans to update it regularly, we're actually kind of excited to read it.
There are still a few kinks to be worked out, though the most glaring of 'em if something JetBlue probably doesn't consider a kink at all. How about that photo of a giant screaming toddler on the front page, guys? There's nothing passengers would rather associate with a six-hour red-eye, huh?
It's time for the third installment of our Site Scramble feature to come to an end. This time, we focused on European discount carriers, of which there are many. There were enough to make our eyes glaze over, but we prevailed, and now it's time to pick the winner, losers, and merely laughable.
Who would have guessed that JetBlue's sister is a smokin' hot Central European beauty? Yup, this LCC, with hubs in Prague, Budapest, and Bratislava (among others) won us over with clean site design, easy and useful searches, and a general sense of order not present on many of the other sites. Plus, look at those flight attendants!
We respect them for flying to Tirana. But can we have an English translation of the site, pretty please? Otherwise it's tough to tell where we're going to be flying. Obscure taxes and fees didn't help the AlpiEagles cause much, either.
These are both solid LCCs, with good reputations. We think they'd make excellent choices as far as carriers go, but the color schemes of their sites make our brain hurt. Orange? Purple and Pink? While they might be good for decorating a notebook in 1987, they're not the easiest to read, marring an otherwise excellent experience.
Coolest Feature: Air Berlin displays the number of remaining seats on flights you're considering, in case you need to know how much time you have to think it over.
Worst Feature: Many airlines don't initially display taxes and fees. C'mon, if we buy the ticket, we're going to find out eventually.
Still Makes Us Laugh:Ryanair's header of CHEAP FLIGHTS. What is this, 1996?
Vueling is a Spanish LCC, based out of Barcelona. Founded in 2004, they follow the JetBlue model quite strictly: They only fly A320s, they're based from a major metropolitan city, and they've poached some managers from the U.S. airline to help them start-up.
So we came in with high expectations, beyond really digging the arty map concept. We liked Vueling, which is definitely in the top tier of LCC web sites. Fare searches are pretty flexible and display surrounding dates. You also get to pick your seat, which is a rarity with these types of airlines, and a welcome level of service. You can also search the "calendar of prices": Pick your destination and see when it will be cheapest to fly there. That's pretty sweet if you ask us--it's like a built-in version of FareCast.
We were impressed with Vueling. If there was only some way to ensure that they served Iberico ham on board--then we'd be first in line for a ticket.
Smartwings is a Prague-based LCC. Operating from the Czech Republic since 2004, their choice of destinations changes more than frequently than Kirstie Alley's dress size. The airline is a subsidiary of Travelservice, the country's largest private airline.
As far as we see it, Smartwings is overshadowed by competitor SkyEurope. Smartwings was exciting when it debuted in Prague, which was late to the LCC game--thanks to the incoming flights from Easyjet and others. The front door isn't confusing, but fare searches are too simple--there's no way to search for days surrounding you intended departure. Also, the route map on the front door looks an awful lot like an Atari game of some kind.
What's more, it's tough to put faith in a ticket on an airline that changes routes to constantly. LCCs seem impermanent by their very nature, but increasing that feeling just makes us anxious. There are better options to be had in this arena.
We're going to restrain ourselves from making any kind of Polish joke here, just to prove that we can be wholesome and tasteful from time to time. Centralwings is a Polish LCC that is a subsidiary of LOT, the Polish national airline. The two are so closely connected that LOT rejiggered their routes so as not to overlap with those of Centralwings. It would appear that GM could learn something from LOT, now that we think about it.
Nonetheless, the site itself goes with the Polish national color scheme of red and white, which we appreciate. The airline flies out of quite a few Polish cities, which is good--you wouldn't want the Wroclaw-Cork route to be overserved, would you? Fare searches are displayed by the whole month in a calendar format, which we liked quite a bit. We see it from time to time and it really is the best way to find a fare if you're set on picking on airline. Good luck converting the fares from zlotys, of course, and they're very pushy about selling insurance, which is irritating. All in all, it's a nice interface, but we're not abandoning SkyEurope anytime soon.
We sure do love us some crazy-named LCCs, but strangely enough, Flybaboo is Swiss. It's not the country that first comes to mind when you think of crazy antics--fondue is about as wild as they get over there. Nonetheless, we want to cover as many of these European carriers as we can, because deals are often where you least expect them.
Flybaboo has one of the best taglines we've seen: A breath of Swiss air. Zing! Take that, polluted Luton and Stansted. Unfortunately, that seems to be the most innovative thing about the airline's website. Fare searches are pretty dull, and because the airline doesn't have that many flights, even from their Geneva hub, flexibility won't help you much. We're talking strictly one flight a day here; surrounding days are listed, and taxes are added once you select a fare. Even those are displayed in Swiss francs, which are tough to convert off the top of your head.
For an airline that's only flying Dash 8's--propeller planes--we'd expect either a snazzier site or better value. Even if the name isn't Swiss, the prices sure are.
We were intrigued by Italian LCC AlpiEagles at first because they are one of the few airlines of any stripe to fly to Tirana, which seemed interesting to us. Beyond that, we didn't know much. The airline itself is based out of Venice's Marco Polo airport, and flies to destinations around Italy, the Adriatic, and Spain. It's pretty old for an LCC; they've been operating since 1996.
While the site interface is sleek in a simple Italian way, we did find a big hindrance to using the site well: It's only in Italian. We suppose we could consider it as a challenge, because maps are easy to figure out in most languages, but that kind of soured our experience. It's a good way to learn the days of the week and the months of the year in Italian, though.
Searches, if you get that far, are easy in the first steps; nearby days are listed, but taxes are not immediately shown. However, once you select your flight, AlpiEagles does break down where each and every one of the charges are coming from, which was informative. Unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of them---LCC equivalents of rust-proofing a car, if you ask us.
So we'll just describe the AlpiEagles experience as authentic. Good luck, and bring your phrasebook.
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by djk
