Brussels Airlines website

[dna]

Dear dna,

in order to investigate the issue, I would need your pnr and FF number. Can you give it to me?

thanks
Kim

I've sent you a mail with those details. Thanks for sorting this out Kim.

David

[Flanker]

The same happens to me from time to time...

BTW, while we are at it:I also never get a pull down calender when clicking the logo and need to enter the dates manually, which is a bit of a hassle, but okay, whatever....


This problem probably occurs because you click the fields too fast, while the page is still loading. If you then reload the page, you will get the dropdowns and the calendar.
Hope this helps!

Well Inquirer, that is your fault, shame on you. Or at least according to SN that is so.
I have the issue all the time by the way and this is the only airline website that I ever used that has this problem.


Let me do your job for you. These are the issues that I encountered recently.

1. Your website is the only IATA airline website in the world that doesn't accept IATA codes.
2. If you're looking up information concerning cargo or charter or specific info, you have to open 30 pages before you get there. If you don't know that it exits, you assume that it doesn't. There are so many linked texts on the homepage that one doesn't know where to look.
3. The issues with the calendar are real, and so are the issues when you get redirected to a page where you have to retype your destinations in again. This is like this since over 2 years.
4. Lay-out is amateuristic. The homepage is out of balance.
I get nausea just from looking at the homepage, which is probably a result of bad colour choices and bad balance. Having a picture slideshow that switches between totally different pictures at a fast pace wants you to get out of the webpage immediately.
5. For special promo's, you get directed to the search engine but then you don't find the promo's or you have to change the dates until you find one or two flights. Aren't you supposed to highlight the flights, so people don't have to look for them?
6. About the content, manneken pis and Jesus are bad taste. If you don't know manneken pis or believe in another religion, you'd be tempted to close the website.
7. Your url is ridiculously long. If you knew the basics of e-marketing, you'd know that the shorter the url, the more visits you attract. Or at least promote a shorter redirect url.
8. Most of the time, despite being in Belgium, I land on the New York website. I have to reselect Brussels and it's not like it's the first choice in the drop down like it's for most airlines and their hubs.
9. The destinations drop-down is difficult to use because of its small size and also because it's weird. If you start typing madrid, you have to type all the way to madr before you isolate madrid from the choices.
10. Your lowest fare guarrantee is ridiculous to even mention. Pax click on it, read it, realise that it's a marketing trick, then go away. How could other airlines sell the same flights if they are competitors? Oh we get it, you want to avoid paying the commissions to third party websites. Lowest fare guarrantee usually is a term you use to compare to competing airlines, not brusselsairlines.com vs Kayak or Expedia...

Let's stop at 10.
If I spent a day on your website, I would be able to write you a book about the findings.

You guys need to get your act together and not just pretend to be interested. These issues aren't new, all it would have taken is to do a complete check using the different browsers.

[Inquirer]

I also never get a pull down calender when clicking the logo and need to enter the dates manually, which is a bit of a hassle, but okay, whatever....

This problem probably occurs because you click the fields too fast, while the page is still loading. If you then reload the page, you will get the dropdowns and the calendar.
Hope this helps!

I've tried your advice, but it just doesn't work, sorry.

Either I enter all data manually (meaning I type the full name of the destination and the full date myself and in full) or I have to get past the usual error message and onto the reloaded second page, when everything suddenly works correctly, because there are simply NO PULL DOWN menus on the first page of the home page.

Same with using IATA codes or point-of-departures other than BRU: I always first need to get past the bug, before it works correctly on the second loaded page, where all pull down menus suddenly work perfectly!

Me thinks your portal is simply too cluttered with nonsense and needs to be cleaned up to make it work well. As others have said: have a look at the SWISS portal; you needn't put more on it than just a booking field and 1 big picture advert next to it, with some minor promotions below... all the other sfuff can be moved to later pages for those interested, IMHO...

It's no big deal because I know how to get past the bug swiftly, but obviously this is offputting to some potential customers, I am sure as I can't image to be the only one having this problem.

The "puzzelwords" that Ryanair has introduced are not to prevent customers from seeking the best deal. Quite at the contrary, they prevent travel agents from seizing the best deals and reselling them at a profit. The Ryanair best deals are to be had by the individual customer, not at a travel agent's.

And travel agents are intellectually unable to fill in puzzlewords then or what do you imply now????

No sir, the only reason why you see them use this is because they want to prevent automated price quotes from competitors and at the same time also prevent their own customers from comparing prices on multiple destinations and longer periods, just like the customer who complained about the Brussels airlines website did! Well I stopped doing it indeed, and booked a B.air flight to BLQ with my M&M miles!

[Inquirer]

Well Inquirer, that is your fault, shame on you. Or at least according to SN that is so.
I have the issue all the time by the way and this is the only airline website that I ever used that has this problem.

Why are you putting words in their mouth?
At least they communicate with their customers here...
Have had much more serious issues with other airlines too -and mailed them about it-, but I never got an answer back!

Back to my remark: the issues I have with the data fields on the booking section of the home page only occur on my PC at work, which is windows Vista and Explorer 9. At home on my Ipad, all works fine on the portal, including the pull down calendar? Strange....

[Squelsh]

Good to see different social media platforms actually being used to get closer to a solution. Welcome to LZ Kim, at least the discussions in here don't end up with complaints about "blasphemy", as in your latest OMG promo on FB page

[airazurxtror]

The "puzzelwords" that Ryanair has introduced are not to prevent customers from seeking the best deal. Quite at the contrary, they prevent travel agents from seizing the best deals and reselling them at a profit. The Ryanair best deals are to be had by the individual customer, not at a travel agent's.

And travel agents are intellectually unable to fill in puzzlewords then or what do you imply now????

No sir, the only reason why you see them use this is because they want to prevent automated price quotes from competitors and at the same time also prevent their own customers from comparing prices on multiple destinations and longer periods

Ryanair, the world’s favourite airline today (28th Nov) vowed to continue to protect consumers again the unauthorised sale of its seats by screenscrapers, and will now modify its new reCAPTCHA internet security feature, after Edreams and Bravofly recommenced the unauthorised display and sale of Ryanair’s low fares, just hours after Ryanair, last Friday, welcomed their decision to cease scraping Ryanair.com.
The reversal by Edreams and Bravofly proves that while Ryanair has not been adversely affected by the blocking on unauthorized travel sites/agents, these sites/agents clearly can’t survive without access to Ryanair’s low fares, which they then offer to customers at inflated prices or with hidden charges.

Ryanair will continue to find ways to block screenscrapers and urged all consumers, who want the lowest fares to book their flights directly on the Ryanair.com website. By eliminating unauthorised screenscraping, Ryanair will continue to improve consumer access to, and the response times of, the Ryanair.com website for genuine consumers/passengers.

[RoMax]

You clearly believe everything RYR says...you should know better...

But as you said yourself this is about SN's website, not about RYR.

[AFApresident]

I agree that the Brussels Airlines website needs to be improved. I always have issues when looking for flights which originate from an airport other than Brussels (e.g. Dakar - Brussels), from the homepage it never gives me the pop down to select the 2 airports. This results in an error and directs you to another page where you have to re-enter all data..

The same happens to me from time to time...

BTW, while we are at it:I also never get a pull down calender when clicking the logo and need to enter the dates manually, which is a bit of a hassle, but okay, whatever....

This problem probably occurs because you click the fields too fast, while the page is still loading. If you then reload the page, you will get the dropdowns and the calendar.
Hope this helps!

Maybe luck, but it seems to be working fine now on my end (no need to wait). Thanks

[regi]

Let me do your job for you. These are the issues that I encountered recently.

1. Your website is the only IATA airline website in the world that doesn't accept IATA codes.

after 30 seconds this popped up ( because I remembered from last week booking): Pegasus.
Just type in BKK and you see ...nothing.
http://www.flypgs.com
Good news is that there are at least 2 which don't accept the IATA codes
Trying to stay positive: I suggest you start a new subject " Websites that don't accept IATA codes."
Guess that it will become a very popular issue again with many hits.

[OO-ITR]

Let me do your job for you. These are the issues that I encountered recently.

1. Your website is the only IATA airline website in the world that doesn't accept IATA codes.

after 30 seconds this popped up ( because I remembered from last week booking): Pegasus.
Just type in BKK and you see ...nothing.
http://www.flypgs.com
Good news is that there are at least 2 which don't accept the IATA codes
Trying to stay positive: I suggest you start a new subject " Websites that don't accept IATA codes."
Guess that it will become a very popular issue again with many hits.

Also why would average joe need to type the IATA codes to look up a destination??? Keep it real. I'm sure this is NOT a priority for people who want to book a flight.
Also on SN's website, you just need to start typing the destination and it will give you the rest automatically. So no need to type out e.g. Ouagadougou out completely
I'm also sure that none one on here knows all the airport and airline codes by heart, which is normal. We are human no robots.
Or maybe one member on here will know all the codes (Flanker aka NCB). But well what else can I say : he knows EVERYTHING

[Flanker]

after 30 seconds this popped up ( because I remembered from last week booking): Pegasus.
Just type in BKK and you see ...nothing.
http://www.flypgs.com
Good news is that there are at least 2 which don't accept the IATA codes

Most frequent travellers and travel departments of corporations know the IATA codes of the regular destinations by heart, as do people who have travelled a few times in their life.

If this is so useless, then why do all legacy airlines offer the option to search using the IATA code?

Pegasus Airlines, the best scheduled charter low cost full-service legacy airline in the world, if you can call it an airline at all, and I'm not even sure they themselves know what they are, is definitely the example to mention.

Way to go Regi.

When you have 30 bookings to do, the last thing you want to be doing is typing full names of airports. Even with 2, I get annoyed. It's an accumulation of small things that make a good website.

Flanker wrote:Well Inquirer, that is your fault, shame on you. Or at least according to SN that is so.
I have the issue all the time by the way and this is the only airline website that I ever used that has this problem.


Why are you putting words in their mouth?
At least they communicate with their customers here...
Have had much more serious issues with other airlines too -and mailed them about it-, but I never got an answer back!

If that loads after other items, it's kind of more the fault of how they programed the homepage items to open and not the customer's fault to wait. This is an SN issue, other websites don't have it. So here you tell one customer to wait until everything loads, what do you tell the other millions of customers?
Maybe communicating is less important than doing their job correctly and figuring a way to make sure that the calendar opens correctly, instead of suggesting one single customer to wait longer?

Balance is one of the first things when you build a template, it's one of the first things they ever teach you.
Look at Singapore, Air France, Lufthansa and Ryanair. Look how everything has its own place.
The SN website looks like everything is put randomly, without using a template.

[regi]

after 30 seconds this popped up ( because I remembered from last week booking): Pegasus.
Just type in BKK and you see ...nothing.
http://www.flypgs.com
Good news is that there are at least 2 which don't accept the IATA codes

Most frequent travellers and travel departments of corporations know the IATA codes of the regular destinations by heart, as do people who have travelled a few times in their life.

If this is so useless, then why do all legacy airlines offer the option to search using the IATA code?

Pegasus Airlines, the best scheduled charter low cost full-service legacy airline in the world, if you can call it an airline at all, and I'm not even sure they themselves know what they are, is definitely the example to mention.

Way to go Regi.

When you have 30 bookings to do, the last thing you want to be doing is typing full names of airports. Even with 2, I get annoyed. It's an accumulation of small things that make a good website.

I just took your own quote:

1. Your website is the only IATA airline website in the world that doesn't accept IATA codes.

to show that you are wrong. There are at least 2 airline websites that don't accept IATA codes.
You use numbers to make a statement. But when those numbers are wrong, you seem to have difficulties that somebody checks your data.

And this issue goes about the website of Brussels Airlines, not about what somebody thinks about an airline.

Ok , that been said, I do agree that it is easier if you can check by the short IATA code. But be aware...even frequent flyers make easy mistakes by using the IATA codes. Some months ago, I corrected here humbly a dear member who messed up with the IATA code of Phuket ( HKT and so similar with HKG ) and Udorn Thani. ( UTH )
I wonder how many professionals have not made mistakes by assuming that HAN stands for Hannover, but the booking would bring them to Hanoi...
Oh, for everybody interested: the code BOT is still available as airline But be aware to travel to the airport with that code because it is...Boset (BOT) Papua New Guinea

[Inquirer]

If that loads after other items, it's kind of more the fault of how they programed the homepage items to open and not the customer's fault to wait. This is an SN issue, other websites don't have it. So here you tell one customer to wait until everything loads, what do you tell the other millions of customers?
Maybe communicating is less important than doing their job correctly and figuring a way to make sure that the calendar opens correctly, instead of suggesting one single customer to wait longer?

Balance is one of the first things when you build a template, it's one of the first things they ever teach you. Look at Singapore, Air France, Lufthansa and Ryanair. Look how everything has its own place.
The SN website looks like everything is put randomly, without using a template.

I've told you before. give them a break: you are so obsessed with them, you've lost the big picture!
Other airlines' websites have issues too, you know?

The Ryanair website for instance remembers my last previous flight request with a cookie and that means that whenever I get back to their website, it fills my next flight request with my previous, including the calendar from that last request, even if it is meanwhile a date in the past, after which you get an error message if you use that date... How stupid is that? Especially since they have introduced the puzzlewords, this error is getting annoying, yet do you see me kick and scream about how incompetent they are, selling tickets for flights in the past, for instance????

[Flanker]

Don't you understand that people booking a 50 euro flight have different expectations than people booking a 200 to 2000 euro flight? Despite all that captcha thing on ryanair, it's still much easier and faster to book with them than on the SN website.

On Ryanair, I don't get the feeling of being ripped off, on the SN website though...
FR allows you to choose your travel dates and fares much easier, on SN you enter your travel dates and hope that something cheap pops-up nearby.

Look at that slideshow on singaporeair.
Look how relaxed it is.
Compare it to the slideshow on sn's website, which looks more like an irritating anti-smoking hypnosis session than an advertisement.

[Inquirer]

Don't you understand that people booking a 50 euro flight have different expectations than people booking a 200 to 2000 euro flight? .

I think ALL passengers love an easy booking without errors or stupid menus, regardless the fare they pay???

Suggesting people who fly RYANAIR somehow get less irritated by all the errors and the puzzlewords on the RYANair website then others, is an insult to these passengers!

When I fly for work, I have my ticket issued through our travel agency at work, so I don't care about the website they used for it: it's only when I fly privately that I check either the Ryanair website OR the Brussels Airlines website (and any other website available), so at that moment it is EXACTLY the same passenger using them, with the SAME online expectation regardless the airline.

[regi]

Why is it I always get an error message whenever I try to add my frequent flyer number to an existing booking on the Brussels Airlines website? It was impossible to do this a few weeks ago, and it still hasn't been fixed. I'm trying to add the number for another flight next week, but when I fill in my name and booking reference it still says "There was an error while processing your request.". Why is it so hard to get this thing working properly? I can access the other details of my flights without problems. This website can do with a major overhaul in my opinion.

After looking a while at these posts I checked the website myself. And now I understand some complaints.
And I do agree that it doesn't work properly.
Very simple excercise: Bru-Berlin
go 23/05 return 24/05
and what you get is an unbelievable low fare...for a return on the 31st /05 !
Okay, I put the date back to 24.
And I receive 3 times different screens ( different departure and return days I have never asked for )
Okay, let's do a double check: through a booking site.( in fact through Amadeus) Everything is fine untill I choose for the option "only by Brussels Airlines". Guess what : same story with different days
Despite I am no website nerd, I can imagine some bugs in the following options:

• +- 3 days travelling
  connection to booking engine
  option for Brussels Airlines only.

But guys, it is true: I can not use the website as it is now, today ,to make a booking with Brussels Airlines for a company visit in week 17.
It took me 1 minute to check a booking with Easyjet on the required days ( with even very good travelling times ). The proces for payment takes a bit longer, still busy.
Price: 142.68 € including goodies such as luggage and insurance.
Sorry Brussels Airlines, you're the weakest link. Bye.
For Kim Daenen: I suggest that you check the website yourself out of the office on a computer without cookies of the company. It happens many times that website developers don't see the bugs themselves. But their customer complains that this or that is not right. Endless discussions untill the developer looks at his own work on an independent PC. Oops. Visual website bugs ( such as dimensions, unreadable text, changing lay out ) are sometimes caused by developing the website on a Mac, while most users have a Windows system.
Having 2 websites myself, I have gone through the torture of discussions with my developer several times. We have now such a good relationship that...he sends me the URL of new sites he develops for other customers and asks me my comment. And yep, always something strange that he doesn't see on his PC, but I immediately find out on my Mac. ( and I can quadruple check on a PC, netbook and a MacMini all with different screen sizes ) But those days changing, that has nothing to do with Mac or PC.

[papysn]

Wow,what a fight between flanker and inquirer... it smels like "rage" between those two.
Flanker seems to destroy anything SN does and Inquirer seems to protect SN at any cost...

To be honest i share Regi's feelings: lot of work to do to get a good website.
Please Kim,try to make this site the most attractive one,it's BruAir first (and sometimes last) impression on pax.

Regards.

K.

P.s I tried WIZZ lcc site today,easy,very easy and cheap...

[Inquirer]

Wow,what a fight between flanker and inquirer... it smels like "rage" between those two.
Flanker seems to destroy anything SN does and Inquirer seems to protect SN at any cost...

No rage whatsoever on my side: I wasn't banned for a week recently...

I have highlighted technical issues with their site too, but I can put them into their full perspective.
Some other members here simply can't do that however and seem to use every single individual occasion the lash out at the same dead horse, making the greatest possible drama from all in all pretty small things really, just to bash the airline they have come obsessed with over and over again.

FWIW, I happen to fly around 150 times per year (mostly for work), on airlines from all possible types and colours, and let me tell you I still need to come across the very first flawless one, nor do I find Brussels Airlines to be particularly bad at what they do. They are above average IMHO, something I wouldn't say from some big names in this industry.

However, I guess it is typically Belgian to be highly negative towards homegrown initiatives, while looking at foreign things much more positively. Reality is they often aren't any better than what 'we' do 'ourselves', but they just pretend they are, with us overly modest Belgians believing all of their grandtalking about being so much better without putting it to the very same scrutiny we always give local things. "Petit pays, petit esprit", probably?

[regi]

No rage whatsoever on my side: I wasn't banned for a week recently...

euh...I wasn't aware about that, but I did think "hey, it is getting quiet again"

[tolipanebas]

After more than 1 year of work, a completely new website is to be rolled out tomorrow... stay tuned.

Looks really good in preview, I must say. :thumbup: