Cyberspace race

Forrester Research's ranking of airline Web sites, based on cost, customer service, delivery, features, content, transacting and overall usability:

1 Alaska Airlines

2 Continental Airlines

3 Northwest Airlines

4 Delta Air Lines

5 American Airlines

6 Southwest Airlines

7 United Air Lines

8 America West Airlines

9 US Airways


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John Samuel has a confession to make. although it's Samuel's job to make sure that American Airline's Web site, AA.com, is the best in the business, he says "I'll be the first to admit I like Northwest Airline's homepage better than any other homepage out there."

Northwest's site is easier to use and the layout is better than AA.com, says Samuel, American's vice president of e-business. And while his candor is refreshing, it's also indicative of the challenges that Samuel and his cohorts at American are now facing. Over the next three years, the U.S.'s second largest airline will spend $2 billion bringing its computer systems into the Internet Age. It's the largest investment in computer technology the airline has made in 40 years.

Updating the Web site is one of a jumbo jet-load of technology upgrades now taxiing toward takeoff at the Fort Worth, Texas, headquarters of the air carrier. American has begun integrating a pair of business-to-business (B2B) portals that will shift much of its $5 billion annual purchasing budget onto the Web. It is replacing its companywide data network — portions of which now run at speeds of just 9.6 kilobits per second — with an Internet Protocol (IP) backbone. Other projects include a new data center for American's Web operations, new hardware and software systems for the carrier's airport agents and a companywide computer-integration effort to allow greater sharing of information throughout the organization.

Upgrading computer systems is never easy...
http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories...701155,00.html