Why is Delta Website so often problematic?
 

This morning, I am trying to book a flight on delta.com. Everytime I enter my search parameters, I get an error screen telling me I must do the following:

You must enter a departure city.
You must enter a destination city.
You must enter a departure date.

Well I have been entering that information. Delta is raking in lots of money right now. You would think they could get effective IT support for a decent website. I just want to book a flight. :(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

This should explain everything you need to know about delta.com.

ummm... beacause they (management) don't care.

That's not entirely true. They do care about one thing - taking our money for as little back as they can. Thus the web site works perfect:

1) Price jumps at last purchase click
2) Mileage jumps at last step of checkout
3) Lowest price tickets at Kayak.com-> Delta.com
4) Price jumps for AMEX BOGOF certs
5) Price jumps when spending ETVs

I could go on but I see the web site working perfect - don't you?;)

Because its easier to outsource IT to the lowest bidder in some 3rd world country and show how much money you're saving on overhead.

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I've been doing searches all morning and can't say I've experienced anything like what OP describes. Ya know, it's also possible this is a browser/middlebox and not a DL issue. Anyone else experiencing what OP describes??

It seems to have been extra problematic the past couple days. It's returning flights that don't exist as if they do (search LHR-JFK and it'll return VS 25, which doesn't go to JFK, but DL.com says it does). Also, even more frustratingly, trying to book a trip with multiple travelers, the top tile where you enter the pax info is supposed to automatically populate the same fields in the secure flight info tile, where the name field is grayed out so you can't enter that info manually. It was not doing that and I had to keep refreshing the page until it would. Grrr!

<sarcasm>

Have you learned nothing on FT? It's ALWAYS the airline's IT problem. Never the user's issue...

• Can't get the fare you want? IT screwed up
• Can't assign the DYKWIA seat you want because it's already assigned? IT screwed up
• Can't get an DYKWIA upgrade because you aren't eligible? IT screwed up
• Website returned the wrong days because you entered them wrong? IT screwed up
• Award calendar doesn't show all low awards everyday on every flight? IT screwed up
• Facetime doesn't work inflight on a CRJ? IT screwed up
• Website doesn't render correctly because you're using IE5? IT screwed up
• Your computer gets a blue screen of death? IT screwed up

</sarcasm>

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but...

:p

Disclaimer: I'm not saying the website doesn't have issues (for example, the award calendar), but working in networking, I've seen too many issues that came down to browsers and middleboxes (firewalls, proxy's, NAT's, etc.) before immediately declaring that it's all the fault of the website. You can now return to mocking me and telling me I'm just a DL fanboy that should have his *ss kicked off FT.

And I'm not saying you networking guys aren't worth having around when needed, but you're often too quick to blame the user :p

I would tend to agree. DL's website does have its issues and its quirks, but it's certainly not as bad as the angry mob here would have everyone believe. IMO it's usable for what I need (i.e. booking flights). I can even book award flights on the website. I agree the UX sucks for award bookings. It requires a lot of "workarounds" to book low award flights, but the point is that I can still get them when they are available.

And now I shall be flamed as well. :)

As one of our R&D managers said: "If you want to wait for a software version that never has bugs, it will never be delivered..."

But that doesn't mean stop chasing bugs and accept things as they are. I believe the feedback I gave above flights that don't exist appearing as if they do is clearly a DL IT issue and not end user based and should be brought to their attention. IOW, there's legitimate gripes that DL is hopefully open to receiving.

This morning I got a mileage ticket for a friend. The boxes on the page where I entered traveler data kept blanking out. I ended up having to phone in.