Comments on: Flash on the Home Page. Why Not?

By: rdharris55

rdharris55 — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:39:01 +0000

I have been experiencing terrible usability issues over the past 4 to 5 weeks. This is occurring on all of my pc’s at my home and on my notebook when I travel. I think that comes close to eliminating my end of the issue. This blog site (subdomain) works fine. However, plain old delta.com acts like a slug. A trace route report shows good performance until arriving at atlanta.savvis.net where it reports the destination net is unreachable.

Today I tried the very unscientific “click and count” test with other airline sites. Everything averages in the 3-5 second range to fully load. delta.com may go 15 seconds before timing out with an interruption message, or it may return a “text” page, with no css or flash or other such formatting. Once in a while the home page will load in reasonable fashion, and the problem will begin when you go any further.

Very frustrating to use…and no real place to go to seek help.

By: JamesK

JamesK — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:20:32 +0000

Another thing to remember is that a lot of corporate IT departments frustratingly don’t allow Flash (or at least not version 9). Those who do tend not to upgrade to the latest version (and Adobe requires an administrator account to install the upgrade). It’s a pain when I have to wait til I get home to book my travel.

By: RexKramer

RexKramer — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:15:02 +0000

During a typical session, I’d like to generally:
* Check my itineraries.
* View my SkyMiles history.
* View this week’s Web Fare Specials.
* View one or more promotions.

This used to be quite simple: right-click each link and open it in a new tab. All content could then be easily read and there’s no need to remember to go back and read about that other special.

With the flash-embedded links, though, it appears that opening one page at a time, then going back to the main page for more content is required. So I often just end up skipping (or forgetting about) the specials and promotions while going through the site more sequentially.

Any way to put this functionality back into the flash panel?

By: yngdiego

yngdiego — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:37:44 +0000

Why can’t you guys fix clearly BROKEN parts of the web site, like the award calendar before you go making it look more pretty? The Flyertalk forum for Delta is riddled with complaints of problems with the DL web site. Please fix these major problems before adding fluff.

By: cincyworldtraveler

cincyworldtraveler — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 01:56:56 +0000

Nice to hear that these enhancements are forthcoming. Haven’t flown DL internationally since Feb., so didn’t know that int’l check-in was available.

I agree that it would be truly awesome if the FF award search included all airline partners. Is it a limitation of the web site or the ticketing systems? I would think that it would save DL some $$$ to link as many airline partners as possible into the award search. Seems like everytime I book int’l FF travel, I have to spend an hour on the phone with an agent, because all the DL SkySavers are gone but they generally find something on the partners that can’t be found on the web site. I’m in the call center business and I know that having an agent on the line for an hour is not cheap or efficient.

By: Geoffrey

Geoffrey — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:35:24 +0000

Drew, I realize there are not specific prices per leg. What I was referring to was the price that is displayed next to the outbound and return itinerary options much like it is displayed on Delta.com. Currently on the mobile version of delta.com no prices are displayed at all until you select both the outbound and return segments. I know the fares are based on roundtrip travel but it is quite useful when I make a reservation.

By: DiscoPapa

DiscoPapa — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:44:49 +0000

Drew, yes you are right. It seems that you have a better chance of the problem (showing SkySaver when there are none) on your 2nd/3rd/4th/etc. attempt at searching for an itinerary. Also, a huge issue being discussed (you can follow the discussion at FlyerTalk.com) is that Delta forces you to book most partner award travel over the phone, thus forcing you to pay the $25 fee (stupid fee to begin with). The online award calendar does not allow you to create anything more than a “simple” itinerary on either DL, CO, NW, or AF. For more multi-city itineraries, or travel involving other partners, you are forced to call DL and pay not only the over-the-phone booking fee, but also the $25 partner fee. The inefficiencies of the award calendar equates to making the individual pay additiona (and unnecessary) booking fees. How is that fair?

By: Drew

Drew — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:43:20 +0000

At the moment the home page does not automatically “fail over” to a non-flash version when you are on a slow connection. It is however on the list of enhancements for the next update. We are also working on getting the home page as lightweight as possible. The updates won’t come all at once, but over the coming weeks you should start to see the home page load faster. We did see the error a week or two ago with the itineraries occasionally hanging and are in the last stages of testing the fix right now. You are correct that it only happens if you click on the itineraries tab before the page finishes loading.

golich17: Its interesting you bring up the lack of the total cost being displayed because that is a result of competitive analysis (aka benchmarking). This summer I’m part of the team rewriting our entire booking and award ticket applications. I’ll see what we can do about getting the total cost displayed as part of it.

cincyworldtraveler: We do support international check-in on delta.com. That was an enhancement that went live in early March. You can also check your free bags online, and within the next month you’ll be able to pay for some of your excess baggage as well.

DiscoPapa: Let me guess about the award calendar kink: the calendar shows SkySaver available but none show up on the available flights page?

Geoffrey: I don’t have a lot of information regarding the mobile site and what can and can’t be done. I know that the in regards to the price, we don’t have prices available for each leg. That’s the reason it isn’t provided.

jamiers: With all the testing we do, I’ve gotten in the habit of clicking the Delta logo in the top left so I can come back to the home page. I’ve found it to be the most efficient approach.

By: jamiers

jamiers — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:24:04 +0000

If you use the menus at the top of the page, you need to click three times in order to get to planning a flight: Planning and Reservations Menu, (1) Plan a Flight, (2) Online Reservations, (3) Reservations. I know that planning a flight is on the main page, but if you aren’t on the main page, it takes too many clicks to plan a flight. The extra pages with information should be combined or should be at the top of the actual reservations page where you can type in the information you want for your flight (cities, dates, etc.)

By: DiscoPapa

DiscoPapa — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:10:37 +0000

I like the Flash, because for the past year, I was not able to see most of the graphics and text on the main column (ie, center of the page…the left side has always worked fine). I pulled up http://www.delta.com last week, and voila…it worked! So two thumbs up from me.

I’ll echo Geoffrey’s comment about the Itineraries and Check-in tab. I have the same problem, but it occurs only if I click on it prematurely, before the entire page fully loads. If I’m patient, haha, then it loads properly.

But I think that overall, the Delta website is very impressive and asthetically-pleasing. There are still quite a few kinks to work out (do I even need to mention the award calendar?).