Why Airlines Need to Clean Up Their Sites

In an attempt to book my holiday airline travels today, I went to several airline sites only to be overwhelmed by the busy-ness of their home pages. I think they intend to cram as much information into the top half of your screen as they can fit. There are distracting pictures that cycle, multiple dialogue boxes, credit card offers, and little boxes with text irrelevant to me booking a flight (click here to view "upgrade fee changes"). All I want to do is book a trip to Baltimore, but where do I go first? I could log in, or read about the travel rewards program, or view the company’s quarterly earnings, or apply for their credit card, or check the weather in Maui or look at their Facebook page (which would then lead to me become totally distracted because I have six new notifications) and then maybe, if I remember, book a flight.

I compared the UI's (user interfaces) and the user experience of booking a flight (usually the main goal when navigating to an airline home page) from the homepage of three different airlines: United Airlines, American Airlines, and Virgin America. Out of these, American Airlines offers the best experience.

Fig.1 American Airline home page 

American Airlines has a straightforward UI that guides the user to exactly what it is you’re trying to do—book a flight! The clean layout first shows you where to enter your mileage account and password on the left, then, to the right you can put in your destination and search for your flight. Their three cycling graphics have images with uncomplicated, non-essential messages so I don’t feel like I’m missing out on something important if I don’t catch the whole thing. The look is palatable (unlike airline food) and the images move slowly enough that I can glance at them if I like. Flight deals and other brand marketing appears way below the fold so if the user has to apply for a credit card, it’s still apparent how to do so, without taking their engagement off of the main goal.

Compare the clean look and feel of American Airlines home page to Virgin America and United Airlines.

fig.2 Virgin America home page

 fig. 3 United Airlines home page 

Both of these sites are too busy. Even with limited colors schemes, they pack their page with more information than needed. If you’re browsing airline home pages for deals on a cheap flight, it's great to see a list of discounted flights listed on the homepage. But let's get real, this information usually reaches you first in an email from the airline or via a discount travel website like kayak.com or orbitz.com. Your day-to-day target audience is less likely to be impressed with advertisements for sunny beach getaways. And please explain to me why I should be concerned about your Q2 earnings while I'm planning my travel?

It’s more likely, especially with the holidays coming up, that people want to do one thing: book a flight. So why crowd more options than that on the experience your user has with the site? Throwing pictures of the in-seat entertainment system is not going to make or break my decision to book a flight in the age of ipads and smartphone. Nor is directing me to your YouTube channel. Airlines should maximize on supplemental marketing later on, once the user has already committed to booking a flight, rather than creating an overly distracting home page. The clean and clear UI award goes to American Airlines! Keep it simple.