SN's new website Fiasco launch

[b720]

The website has been down the whole day, and has been malfunctioning since they introduced the "new look" and pricing system. What is going on? Where they too soon to launch the "new"website, as they felt the heat from LCCs? Why did they not delay by a few weeks and launch a website, tools, and booking engine that actually work?

[OO-ITR]

still possible to book a flight and check in online though

[Flanker2]

It's working for me now.
I must say that it's quite an improvement. It's much easier to use, everything is simplified and the presentation looks good. The cheap fare finder is working quite well even though an interim step would have been better in order to select your travel month, rather than just being sent directly to a certain date +/- 3 days.

They did a good job overall. Thank god, it was long overdue.

[b720]

Yes working now, fully!! Indeed long overdue, and it does look much better. However was not working at ALL earlier today..and was very erratic the last few weeks; however it seems to be FULLY operational as of now..

[Inquirer]

I checked their website and everything seems to work well, probably a little bit faster than before even?

Maybe they simply pulled part of their site offline for a few hours in order to do some hard- and/or software upgrading or something, but it definitely looks all fine to me now?

Anybody noticed what may have been changed, btw?

would also be appropriate to change the title of this topic too then, because their website looks just as good as any other airlines website and as far as I can tell works just as good too, IMHO.

[b720]

I agree, it is running very well.. However the launch of the site has been disasterous. The title refers to launching the site..

[Inquirer]

I see, yet this website has been online for some time now, hasn't it?
Could it be you got carried a bit away this morning when seeing the unavailability, which in hindsight may have been due to an upgrade being done, exactly as you are/we're calling for?
Anybody knows what base changed, btw? Is it the low fare finder?

[Boeing767copilot]

It's impossible to pay now:
ERROR: The requested URL could not be retrieved

[b720]

The whole website was down this morning, for hours. Last few weeks, often only booking was possible. Upgrades impossible. and many other functions. It seems that things are not working as should!!! I compare to SWISS. I use both websites equally. Swiss embarked on the same changes a bit less than a year ago. The new website was launched, everything worked 100 pct from the first minute! SN has actually taken a lot from the SWISS booking engine. Why is SN not capable to launch a new website that actually works from the beginning? Why did they not delay launching it until they were sure that it is 100 pct operational. What happened the last 2 weeks is really unprofessional.

[Inquirer]

Again, not doubting your observations, but I don't see anything wrong with it right now?

Not that I use it a lot: according to my browser history, I've visited their website 3 times in the last 2 weeks: once to check our their new look, once to read some press release linked to via this site and once because of this topic. On all 3 visits it seemed to work correctly and in between I've booked 7 return trips with them in Europe, for a total of over 2000 euro, which in fact shows just how relative it all is.

Contrary to what we may think here online, websites are not (yet) the alpha and omega of commerce and luckily so, or they have to send me on early retirement at work; on second thoughts, that may actually be a tempting outlook.

[SNam]

There were some power cuts this morning at the airport. Maybe that is why the website was offline?

[sn26567]

There were some power cuts this morning at the airport. Maybe that is why the website was offline?

No, it was a server problem.

[jan_olieslagers]

it was a server problem.

That would be one more good reason for them to hire an expert system engineer - I've sent them my resume more than once... but they obviously think themselves clever enough.

[Flanker2]

The lost bookings of this morning alone would have paid your salary for a while

In the U.S. they call this "tripping over a dollar to pick-up a dime".
During my time at SN, I have seen enough of this.
So my advice to you: if you're good, don't waste your time there.

[OO-ITR]

The lost bookings of this morning alone would have paid your salary for a while

In the U.S. they call this "tripping over a dollar to pick-up a dime".
During my time at SN, I have seen enough of this.
So my advice to you: if you're good, don't waste your time there.

Once again it shows that you don't know what you are talking about. During down time it was possible to book a flight and to check in online...
So NO lost bookings!!!

[b720]

Nope, you're wrong. That was the case the last few weeks; however yesterday am one could nopt even book.
Call centers were unreachable, miles n more, could not be reached.. we booked (multiple tickets) on Swiss.. as we had no choice.. Besides the plus grade was not working since the new website was launched. It worked yesterday pm for the first time..lost revenue there too.. yes they have lost revenue (yesterday) for sure!! AGAIN, why did they launch the website before making 100 pct sure that it will function properly?

[jan_olieslagers]

That is a bit easy - in IT, just like in aviation, 100% certitude does not exist. Still, if such a lot of functionality was lost (for how long?) the trouble must have been quite bad.

[Inquirer]

Nope, you're wrong. That was the case the last few weeks; however yesterday am one could nopt even book.
Call centers were unreachable, miles n more, could not be reached.. we booked (multiple tickets) on Swiss.. as we had no choice.. Besides the plus grade was not working since the new website was launched. It worked yesterday pm for the first time..lost revenue there too.. yes they have lost revenue (yesterday) for sure!! AGAIN, why did they launch the website before making 100 pct sure that it will function properly?

Because you can also look at it the other way.

The new features were advertised and available for sale most of the time, so extra money was made whenever somebody could use it, even before it would normally have, had they waited till full perfection.

The endless discussion about a glass being half full or half empty, I agree.

[Bottie]

Nope, you're wrong. That was the case the last few weeks; however yesterday am one could nopt even book.
Call centers were unreachable, miles n more, could not be reached.. we booked (multiple tickets) on Swiss.. as we had no choice.. Besides the plus grade was not working since the new website was launched. It worked yesterday pm for the first time..lost revenue there too.. yes they have lost revenue (yesterday) for sure!! AGAIN, why did they launch the website before making 100 pct sure that it will function properly?

I presume it's not the same to test a website/software in a testing environment or put it online. Your systemload for example is much higher live compared to a testing-setup. Just guessing

[jan_olieslagers]

There certainly are test tools that simulate user load, but they can only be used to realistic effect on a system identical to the production environment. Some organisations do have such an identical second production environment, as a so-called "hot stand by" which can take over on short term if things go seriously wrong. But there's lots of caveats to this subject - search the www for "IT disaster recovery" if interested.

From the scant information available here (lots of functionality unavailable but the web pages themselves accessible) I can't help wondering if one or more databases were in trouble - but that's only wild speculation. But database performance under heavy load is the hardest of all to estimate and to simulate, mainly because most databases are accessed by several applications, usually in different ways.