Originally Posted by pinniped

OK, I like a lot of the gizmos on that site. But high-res photography, animation, widgets, and other ajax-y stuff make for a slow page load. So I may want to look at their snazzy animation of Norway when I'm at home, but if I'm in a hotel on a crappy 3G data connection, I don't want anything to do with it.

So to me, any decent airline site should have an "expert mode" that is lightweight and straight to the essential functions of booking, managing, and changing tickets.

The demo also didn't cover some of the most important elements of any decent airline site. Such as...

- I should be able to book any award in the airline's alliance online with no hassle. If a phone agent can do it, why can't I?

- I should be able to assemble complex or "nonstandard" itineraries as long as they are legal per fare or award rules.

- I should be able to easily manage my booking, seat assignments, etc. all the way up until at least the point at which the flight goes under airport control. It should not matter how I acquired the ticket to begin with: I want to manage it at the operating airline's website. (e.g., Not my corporate travel portal, some partner airline's site, or some third-party travel agent site.)

- I should be able to OLCI any itinerary that doesn't require a human document check at the counter agent, no matter how I booked the ticket. If the airline possesses my passport information and it's an itin that does not require a visa to travel, then that should be good enough to OLCI. Gate agents of course do additional doc checks at boarding time, but that should not affect my ability to OLCI.

- The airline should provide decent status updates when my flight changes. At a minimum, they always have my email. Usually they have my mobile as well. Again, it shouldn't matter how I bought the ticket or whether I'm flying a codeshare or a ticket I bought from a travel agent: at the end of the day, I want to be able to log into my itin and set up alerts with the operating carrier.

I don't dislike the fluff as long as I can turn it off. But I wish they'd focus on the core functionality. As far as I know, no airline in the world yet does all of these basic functions. Some get close in some areas but totally whiff in others.