Most recent statement from Amadeus:

“Minimising such incidents and their impact on our customers is very important to Amadeus.

“During the incident, our priority was to return to normal service as quickly as possible; once it closed we focused on identifying the cause and analysing actions we could take to avoid reoccurrence. The cause of the problem appears to be a network component.

“We are continuing to investigate this in detail. Once again, we regret the inconvenience this incident may have caused.”

ORIGINAL:

The extent of a significant technology failure at Amadeus yesterday is beginning to unravel, as other systems across the industry are now known to have been affected.

Amadeus is remaining tight-lipped as to what triggered such a major collapse, when an outage which lasted a number of hours managed to hit passenger self check-in and reservation systems, agency bookings as well as airport counter systems.

A post on the Amadeus blog this morning said the incident had been fully resolved, with an apology for the inconvenience. Officials will not disclose the nature and size of the outage.

It is understood that although Amadeus customers were hit by the problems, other GDSs were also impacted as the Amadeus airline IT system ALTEA was involved.

ALTEA currently powers over 100 airlines around the world, including British Airways, Qantas, Iberia and Cathay Pacific.

Although it is an Amadeus-run platform, agencies on other distribution networks such as Sabre and Travelport which were trying to connect to some of the airlines involved were also unable to carry out fare queries or make bookings.

A number of insiders across the GDSs have confirmed that the outage was far bigger than initially thought given that the ALTEA system effectively controls how agencies on other networks connect to airline reservation systems.

NB: Image via Shutterstock.

The outage lasted a number of hours and hit passenger self check-in and reservation systems, agency bookings as well as airport counter systems.

Reports say British Airways, Qantas, Iberia and Cathay Pacific are among the airlines hit by the system failure.

In short: it could be the double whammy of a distribution service and airline IT collapse.

At around 2000 CET (1300 EST), Amadeus released a statement to confirm that all airline systems are restored.

“Some travel agency customers may continue to experience service disruption which we are investigating. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.”

Amadeus says a detailed explanation as to what happened and which airlines were affected will be released in due course.

The problem is the second in as many months for Amadeus, after seeing Qantas hit by a major outage in December when passengers were unable to check-in with the airline for a number of hours in December last year.

More to follow…

NB: Image via Shutterstock.

Both Ryanair and BA increased their market share over the same period by 0.5% and 075% respectively, leaving EasyJet with a healthy but shorter lead of 4% over second place.

Most popular travel websites in the UK for the week ending January 21 2012:

Agencies

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Thomson	www.thomson.co.uk	7.60%	1
2	Expedia.co.uk	www.expedia.co.uk	7.24%	2
3	Thomas Cook	www.thomascook.com	5.97%	3
4	Lastminute.com	www.lastminute.com	4.48%	4
5	TravelRepublic.co.uk	www.travelrepublic.co.uk	4.18%	5
6	First Choice	www.firstchoice.co.uk	3.10%	6
7	skyscanner	www.skyscanner.net	2.68%	7
8	Cheapflights.co.uk	www.cheapflights.co.uk	2.55%	9
9	Travelzoo UK	www.travelzoo.com/uk	2.48%	10
10	travelsupermarket.com	www.travelsupermarket.com	2.46%	8

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor UK	www.tripadvisor.co.uk	12.07%	1
2	Booking.com	www.booking.com	7.10%	2
3	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	3.20%	3
4	LateRooms.com	www.laterooms.com	2.41%	4
5	Travelodge UK	www.travelodge.co.uk	1.85%	5
6	Premier Inn	www.premierinn.com	1.82%	7
7	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	1.49%	6
8	Owners Direct	www.ownersdirect.co.uk	1.29%	8
9	Holiday Lettings	www.holidaylettings.co.uk	1.23%	9
10	Time Out	www.timeout.com	1.19%	-

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	easyJet.com	www.easyjet.com	17.81%	1
2	Ryanair	www.ryanair.com	13.85%	2
3	British Airways	www.britishairways.com	12.25%	3
4	Jet2.com	www.jet2.com	5.45%	4
5	Monarch.co.uk	www.monarch.co.uk	5.13%	6
6	Virgin atlantic	www.virgin-atlantic.com	4.89%	7
7	Flybe	www.flybe.com	4.30%	5
8	Thomson Airways	flights.thomson.co.uk	3.07%	9
9	flythomascook.com	www.flythomascook.com	2.91%	10
10	bmibaby	www.bmibaby.com	2.59%	-

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	google maps	0.94%	0.70%	99.30%	1
2	thomas cook	0.65%	38.58%	61.42%	3
3	easyjet	0.64%	2.33%	97.67%	2
4	ryanair	0.57%	0.78%	99.22%	4
5	national rail	0.55%	0.98%	99.02%	5
6	tfl	0.45%	1.06%	98.94%	8
7	thomson	0.42%	1.36%	98.64%	6
8	travelodge	0.41%	32.09%	67.91%	7
9	first choice	0.39%	1.83%	98.17%	9
10	trainline	0.37%	49.33%	50.67%	-

NB: Data courtesy of Experian Hitwise

NB2: Image via Shutterstock.

The low-cost carrier added almost 2% market share to its previous position, leaving it over 6.5% ahead of British Airways.

Ryanair also gained 0.5% over the same period, as Virgin Atlantic dropped to fifth position behind Jet2.

Most popular travel websites in the UK for the week ending January 7 2012:

Agencies

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Thomson	www.thomson.co.uk	8.08%	1
2	Expedia.co.uk	www.expedia.co.uk	6.76%	2
3	Thomas Cook	www.thomascook.com	5.92%	3
4	Lastminute.com	www.lastminute.com	4.57%	4
5	TravelRepublic.co.uk	www.travelrepublic.co.uk	3.96%	5
6	First Choice	www.firstchoice.co.uk	3.70%	6
7	skyscanner	www.skyscanner.net	2.67%	7
8	travelsupermarket.com	www.travelsupermarket.com	2.61%	10
9	Cheapflights.co.uk	www.cheapflights.co.uk	2.48%	8
10	Travelzoo UK	www.travelzoo.com/uk	2.27%	9

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor UK	www.tripadvisor.co.uk	11.38%	1
2	Booking.com	www.booking.com	6.65%	2
3	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	3.00%	5
4	LateRooms.com	www.laterooms.com	2.50%	3
5	Travelodge UK	www.travelodge.co.uk	2.31%	4
6	Premier Inn	www.premierinn.com	1.53%	6
7	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	1.52%	8
8	Owners Direct	www.ownersdirect.co.uk	1.39%	-
9	Time Out	www.timeout.com	1.26%	7
10	Holiday Lettings	www.holidaylettings.co.uk	1.21%	-

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	easyJet.com	www.easyjet.com	19.21%	1
2	British Airways	www.britishairways.com	12.89%	2
3	Ryanair	www.ryanair.com	12.47%	3
4	Jet2.com	www.jet2.com	5.47%	5
5	Virgin atlantic	www.virgin-atlantic.com	5.13%	4
6	Flybe	www.flybe.com	4.67%	6
7	Monarch.co.uk	www.monarch.co.uk	4.41%	7
8	Emirates	www.emirates.com	3.07%	8
9	Thomson Airways	flights.thomson.co.uk	2.64%	9
10	flythomascook.com	www.flythomascook.com	2.55%	-

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	google maps	0.84%	0.67%	99.33%	1
2	thomas cook	0.73%	37.47%	62.53%	5
3	easyjet	0.71%	2.17%	97.83%	4
4	national rail	0.63%	1.17%	98.83%	2
5	ryanair	0.54%	1.15%	98.85%	9
6	thomson	0.54%	0.87%	99.13%	8
7	first choice	0.50%	2.30%	97.70%	-
8	travelodge	0.46%	34.51%	65.49%	6
9	tfl	0.44%	1.40%	98.60%	3
10	trip advisor	0.39%	50.13%	49.87%	-

NB: Data courtesy of Experian Hitwise

NB2: Image via Shutterstock.

The price tracking feature, a first for the flight search specialist across any of its platforms, takes advantage of the Windows Phone capability and enables users to put a Live Tile on the home screen of their device and track the price of selected flights.

Prices are automatically updated every hour.

Skyscanner adds the Windows Phone app to its existing iPhone and Android apps which have been downloaded almost 5 million times according to the company.

British Airways recently demonstrated developments it is considering for the Windows Phone.

The jury is still out on the Windows Phone  however with Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer admitting at a recent analyst event that the company had not sold as many as it had hoped in its first year since launch.

The app takes advantage of WP 7′s navigation technology.

Around the same time we started to see clips emerging from Microsoft, featuring a 3D-style seat map for the airline – shown below, also making the most of the phone’s user interface and Mango update.

While this doesn’t seem to have materialised yet, last week at Apps World, the airline’s head of web and mobile innovation Chris Carmichael demonstrated the same functionality, still on Windows Phone 7, as well as providing a hint at further potential functionality for the future.

Carmichael says there are no firm plans or dates for any of this functionality but that the airline is looking at the ‘future capabilities of mobile.’

He adds that it’s about moving away from the static web experience and making the apps more interesting by adding value with information such as the food and film choice available as well as integrating social media enabling passengers to update friends and family.

The move follows a successful trial over a few months in the summer where 100 of the airline’s top crew members were given the device so they can quickly identify where each customer is sitting, the Executive Club status of a passenger or any special meal requirements.

BA says the three-month trial will trigger the start of not only the wider roll-out across long and short haul routes but also other ways of using the device to improve customer service on-board.

The motivation behind the scheme was to to replace the long scrolls of paper containing the passenger manifest, but also ensure customer details and boarding information is up-to-date using the iPad’s 3G web connection.

The roll-out will see the addition of destination content to the iPads.

The introduction of the iPads is part of a grand scheme to invest £5 billion in new aircraft, renovate older cabins and other technology around BA over the next five years, BA claims.

iPads are slowly now becoming less of a unique feature at airlines, with Alaska Airlines giving the device to pilots to replace printed manuals in cockpit, for example, while Jetstar has now fully launched its iPad in-flight entertainment system.

What a year this is turning out to be for Qantas. In June, the Chilean ashcloud crisis affected many of their flights for an extended period.

Then almost out of the blue, disaster (at least for passengers and from a PR perspective) struck when, on October 29, following instructions from CEO Alan Joyce, Qantas announced that it was grounding all flights indefinitely, with employees not required to report to work.

Understandably, and almost immediately, the internet exploded. While passengers vented their dismay and fury, it’s notable that most employees were even taken unaware, led to perhaps an initially wary and “slow” response from Qantas as customer inquiries flooded the official Twitter account.

Tweets mentioning Qantas shot up. Very soon, “Qantas” and “Alan Joyce” were trending worldwide, indicating tweets containing the keywords were in excess of 1,000 per minute.

As the initial response from Qantas was decried as being too “mechanical and impersonal”, Virgin seized the opportunity to jump in and offer to rescue stranded Qantas passengers. But as more information came in, Qantas was able to implement a more concerted response in social media and help customers.

Hardly had the airline managed to start rolling out its service recovery efforts when another blow was struck. Exactly a year to the date (November 4) of last year’s A380 engine scare over Singapore, a different Qantas A380 heading to London from Singapore experienced an engine failure in mid-air and had to be diverted to Dubai.

If the timing of the failure coupled with the previous few days’ wretched PR weren’t enough, this particular flight happened to have Stephen Fry, the famous writer, actor and comedian on board. Fry is also one of the most popular Twitter celebs with a following of around 3.5 million (compared to @QantasAirways with 66,000 followers.)

What followed – flight diverted, extended delay, alternate flights heavily booked, hotels full andFry left his wallet on the plane – had all the ingredients for another PR disaster for Qantas.

But has Qantas ultimately fared? Check out the deck to see a detailed analysis of how the crisis unfolded, how Qantas responded and what it eventually did to enable service recovery, covering both the industrial dispute and the engine failure a few days later...

NB: This is a guest article by Shubhodeep Pal, senior innovation officer at airline and airport strategy firm SimpliFlying.

NB2: See Alex Kremer’s post - Social media gurus should give Qantas a break.

Critics are charging the airline with being “too corporate” on Twitter and not responding to individual customers’ needs.

In addition, so-called social media “experts” far and wide have come out of the woodwork to pile on, charging the airline with being completely ineffective in talking to its customers during this time and effectively turning its @QantasAirways Twitter account into a one-way monologue.

Which begs the simple question: how could Qantas have handled this crisis differently?

It’s quite easy to say that Qantas should have responded individually to the approximately 98,000 passengers affected by this shutdown.

But would anything have changed? Probably not.

The airline was, for all intents and purposes, in completely uncharted territory – it had grounded 108 planes in 22 cities around the world.

Would thousands of individual “I’m sorry, but we’re not flying today” responses changed anything or made any customer feel more appreciated?

Extremely doubtful.

While social media is an effective communications medium for dealing with individual service issues, it’s fair to say that even the most well-staffed social media department is ill-equipped to handle a situation of this magnitude, especially in the sort of compressed timeframe which kicked off early on Saturday and was on the path to comeing back on-stream by Sunday night.

But things obviously could have been handled better.

The core of any social media crisis response should be not only informational as Qantas was trying to be, but an attempt to control the message.

In this, Qantas failed and demonstrated that even internally, social media staff were reacting to a fast-developing situation rather than having been prepared for it.

A recent report by Altimeter Research – Social Readiness: How Advanced Companies Prepare – shows that Qantas isn’t alone: more than half of companies with advanced social media strategies haven’t developed a social media crisis plan.

Amongst the recommendations cited in the report is a clear, top-down level blessing of a team that has the full authority to speak for and on behalf of the company.

In Qantas’ case, one could argue that on the day the shutdown started, this was all the company was prepared to say. But it clearly didn’t sit well with customers.

On the second day of the shutdown, thw airline’s social media tone shifted and it started responding by literally sending hundreds of individual replies to customers.

At one point, Qantas even exceeded a Twitter-imposed limit on the number of @replies it could send, showing the company was making an effort to gain ground on this customer service crisis.

The company has since then ratcheted up its response rates even more, demonstrating that critiques about its social media reaction being too “one way” were unwarranted.

The lessons learned are two-fold:

• First, there is no good answer or response when an airline stops flying entirely. No matter the communication channel, customers will be upset, afraid, and full of uncertainty. The natural human reaction to these feelings is to try to talk with someone who can fix the situation as soon as possible. But just like its call center agents, Qantas’ social media staff had very few options for fixing anything or making customers feel better.
• Second, preparedness for a crisis such as this is paramount, and airlines in particular should have well-prepared social media response plans so that they can effectively communicate with their customers and deliver as much information as quickly possible.

In the end, that’s all customers really want.

The airline took the decision to axe services as part of a massive and risky move in its ongoing row with striking staff.

However the airline and representatives of employees involved in the ongoing strikes were told by an independent employee tribunal body in Australia to find a permanent solution to the industrial dispute.

Services are returning to normal after the airline was granted permission to resume flying by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority in Australia.

The airline estimates services will be back to normal over the course of the next two days, but certainly the systems behind the scenes are scaling back up much quicker than when the services were suspended on Saturday.

In the immediate aftermath of the closure of services, flight search on the Qantas website and some online travel agencies was still available and GDSs were showing availability on many segments.

Qantas codeshare airlines, such as American Airlines, had shut down options in the GDS quickly but, curiously, Qantas had not.

However, with the resumption of services today, search and booking on the main website is up and running and GDSs are already showing full inventory.

Although the impact over the weekend was chaotic, it would appear the recovery of getting everything back online and functioning is taking much less time than shutting it down.

But the mayhem is not over just – distribution teams will be managing the external side of getting fares and availability on-track and in the various channels the airline operates, while the reservations department will have the daunting task of arranging seats for the thousands of passengers stuck in limbo for the past two days.

There is plenty of speculation and commentary that the move has backfired on the airline, although if the decision to ground planes was to simply bring about a new a chapter to the negotiations in the dispute, then it has actually worked.

Stranding 70,000 angry passengers in various locations around the world is clearly a show of brinkmanship, but whether the reputation of the airline will return to normal as quickly as the aircraft in the sky is another matter.

CEO Alan Joyce labelled his decision “unbelievable”, a move which effectively closed the doors on 108 planes at 22 airports around the world, in one of the boldest displays of brinkmanship against an angry workforce in recent memory in any industry, let alone in the travel sector.

Staff with which the airline is in dispute – mainly pilots, baggage handlers and engineers – will also be locked out of Qantas facilities from Monday next week.

Employees are up in arms – and have hit the airline with strikes in recent months – over a major restructuring of the business which could see headcount cut by 1,000 from a total of 35,000, as well as plans to shift some of its operations to Asia.

Inevitably there has been strong reaction from the unions involved – calling Joyce “maniacal” – as well as the Australian government, with prime minister Julia Gillard expressing concerns about the long-term effect on the country’s economy. Qantas has around 65% of the domestic market.

But effectively shutting down an airline is no small matter, especially when looking at the situation from a marketing and distribution perspective.

First of all, the severity and the timing of the move appears to have taken many by surprise.

This wasn’t former-British Airways CEO Willie Walsh trying to wind up striking cabin crew, but a challenge of epic proportions to resolve a crisis in the most extreme way possible.

Passengers really had no idea at all that such a course of action was about to happen, with promotions being sent to frequent flyer members just over 24 hours ago. Some aircraft had already been grounded, but to pull the entire fleet from service in an attempt to force the hand of strikers is unknown in modern aviation.

One intriguing aspect to the entire saga is that flight search is still available on the Qantas website for all forward dates – visitors can search and find fares and proceed far into a booking.

The only visible sign of a problem is a one-line note on the homepage…

Meanwhile, travel agencies were still seeing availability hours after the announcement on the GDSs. Seemingly it takes a while to close off an airline’s entire framework.

Here is Amadeus, for example:

Curiously, strategic partner American Airlines had quickly closed off codeshares in the system, but Qantas had not.

Presumably if the shut-down continues in the medium term, various systems will click into gear and codeshares, search feeds (on the main site and elsewhere) will eventually catch up with the reality of, well, customers having zero Qantas flights available to book.

This disconnect in the the user (and intermediary) experience is a dangerous game to play.

And, furthermore, despite the hyperbole from Qantas, and indeed the subsequent course of action by staff, travellers will be even less forgiving if it fails to bring the angry workforce to the negotiating table.

Of course, if there is irony in all this it comes in the form of Qantas celebrating an unfortunate anniversary in the next few days – on the 4th November last year the airline found itself in the middle of another PR storm when one of its Airbus A380s encountered problems shortly after take-off from Singapore Changi Airport en-route to Sydney.

OpenSkies, a French flag carrier, is the first offspring of the EU/US Open Skies Agreement, which enables airlines to fly between any EU and US destination.

So, it was curious for OpenSkies, the airline, that is, to talk about its technology investment in iPads for in-flight entertainment while simultaneously announcing that it was suspending one of its two routes because of tough-going in business travel.

“As an airline, OpenSkies is known for its innovation and will continue to invest in new technology and products which give our customers a best-of-class experience in the sky,” says Karin Drylie, OpenSkies product manager. “The introduction of the iPad to our inflight entertainment marks a significant improvement in the experience for customers, using the very latest technology to offer better image quality on a far bigger screen.”

When passengers on the remaining Newark to Paris-Orly route board an OpenSkies flight, they will get to use iPads which come preloaded with 64GB of games, TV programs and films of recent vintage, the airline says.

The iPad also contains a customer guide to inform travelers how to use the Apple tablet.

OpenSkies says it would consider reinstituting the Washington-Dulles to Paris-Orly route if business conditions improve, Air Transport World reports.

OpenSkies all-business-class 757 aircraft have 12 seats in its Biz Bed section, which offers lie-flat seats.  And the remaining 72 seats in the 84-seat configuration are Biz Seats, which recline 140 degrees and have 52 inches pitch.

The recent annals of aviation are littered with the failures of all-business class airlines flying between Europe and the US.

For example, Maxjet suspended operations in 2007 and Silverjet went out of business in 2008.

But, all of that was before the invention of the iPad, which hopefully will be a good-luck charm for OpenSkies and its road warrior passengers.

Adding more than 1.5% market share on its previous week, EasyJet now has a gap of almost 10% over Ryanair, with British Airways another 2% behind.

The top three have a combined 46% share of the entire airline category in the UK.

Most popular travel websites in the UK for the week ending September 24 2011:

Agencies

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Thomson	www.thomson.co.uk	7.37%	1
2	Expedia.co.uk	www.expedia.co.uk	7.03%	2
3	Lastminute.com	www.lastminute.com	5.83%	3
4	Thomas Cook	www.thomascook.com	5.65%	4
5	TravelRepublic.co.uk	www.travelrepublic.co.uk	4.24%	5
6	Travelzoo UK	www.travelzoo.com/uk	3.09%	7
7	skyscanner	www.skyscanner.net	2.72%	6
8	Cheapflights.co.uk	www.cheapflights.co.uk	2.43%	-
9	travelsupermarket.com	www.travelsupermarket.com	2.37%	8
10	First Choice	www.firstchoice.co.uk	2.27%	10

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.co.uk	11.60%	1
2	Booking.com	www.booking.com	7.11%	2
3	LateRooms.com	www.laterooms.com	3.62%	3
4	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	3.32%	4
5	Premier Inn	www.premierinn.com	2.75%	6
6	Travelodge UK	www.travelodge.co.uk	2.74%	5
7	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	1.45%	7
8	InterContinental Hotels Group	www.ichotelsgroup.com	1.30%	8
9	Time Out	www.timeout.com	1.12%	9
10	Owners Direct	www.ownersdirect.co.uk	0.94%	10

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	easyJet.com	www.easyjet.com	22.30%	1
2	Ryanair	www.ryanair.com	13.97%	2
3	British Airways	www.britishairways.com	10.38%	3
4	Jet2.com	www.jet2.com	4.54%	6
5	Flybe	www.flybe.com	4.47%	7
6	Virgin atlantic	www.virgin-atlantic.com	3.95%	8
7	Monarch.co.uk	www.monarch.co.uk	3.61%	9
8	Mal‚v Hungarian Airlines	www.malev.com	3.48%	5
9	bmibaby	www.bmibaby.com	2.45%	-
10	Thomson Airways	flights.thomson.co.uk	2.28%	-

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	google maps	1.16%	1.72%	98.28%	1
2	national rail	0.69%	2.09%	97.91%	2
3	easyjet	0.65%	4.41%	95.59%	3
4	train times	0.59%	27.94%	72.06%	4
5	tfl	0.53%	0.84%	99.16%	8
6	ryanair	0.48%	3.20%	96.80%	5
7	thomas cook	0.48%	32.75%	67.25%	7
8	travelodge	0.47%	51.26%	48.74%	6
9	aa route planner	0.46%	1.82%	98.18%	9
10	trainline	0.42%	56.44%	43.56%	-

NB: Data courtesy of Experian Hitwise

It’s very slick, uses a fair amount of CGI, and is clearly trying to create a professional but friendly tone with the slightly husky voice musing about the airline’s values and years gone by (Concorde is prominent, of course).

BA invited the media to a screening of the ad at a venue in London earlier this week, presumably to persuade them to write about the new campaign and introduce them to the agency behind it, BBH.

The ad is due to air on commercial TV channels in the next few days, but BA has made a big thing about launching the ad first on the front of its Facebook page.

The airline wanted to “give loyal customers and Facebook followers [100,000+] the opportunity to see the advert first”, an official says.

There are even Making Of and Visual Effects clips, such is the effort that BA and its media strategy people have put into the campaign, its biggest in 11 years.

But despite the coverage in the travel trade and marketing press (all of which have either embedded the video or linked to it), mainstream media in the UK and Facebook page, just 300 views have been recorded on YouTube since yesterday.

Compare all this to a video created by traveller Benjamin Jenks (for his AdventureSauce blog) – a time lapse effort documenting a trip across the US.

Okay, so it looks remarkably similar in style to the wonderful The Longest Way clip from 2009, but in just two days it has attracted almost 11,000 views on YouTube.

Now, in the long run, BA’s new ad is probably going to get plenty of eyeballs on TV (although, not exactly “opted in”, as people have the ad breaks on during programmes).

But in the world of video on the web, which inherently lends itself to clips getting picked up via social networks and shared between friends and contacts, perhaps only the quirky, user generated clips ever get significant traction.

And perhaps why a brand such as Air New Zealand, which does get serious numbers for its clips, only produces videos with scary aerobic instructors, naked (but painted) cabin crew and the annoying puppet Rico.

The study is from Netherlands-based web usability firm Usabilla – a specialist in providing visual feedback to companies on how their sites perform.

Usabilla based the research on hotel, airline and what it terms, price comparison sites, asking participants what they liked and what they would remove?

The Facebook ‘like’ button was widely disliked across almost all sites involved in the study with respondents finding it silly and questioning how liking a company on the social network would help them.

For most brands, including British Airways, easytobook, Travelocity and Expedia, consumers provided negative feedback on the Facebook thumbs up button.

The only exception was within the hotel sector where brands such as Hyatt used the Facebook widget to show how many fans it has and participants felt this instilled trust.

The other element of homepages that consistently received negative feedback was promotions and best offers advertisements.

Respondents felt they were distracting and did not want to click for a better deal when that was why they had visited the site in the first place.

On this element, Priceline, which received positive feedback for the innovative bidding elements of the site, and Expedia, were the only exceptions.

How deals were displayed made a difference for Expedia with 42% of respondents saying the deals and offers button was a strength but 38% said they did not like the Groupon Getaways or the association with the flash sales provider.

In addition, 51% did not like the use of internal ads on the far right on the site.

Other key findings:

• Hotels – clean sites with a strong logo and easy navigation deemed more trustworthy and attractive. Easy to find contact numbers, affiliation with sister brands and geographic locations also reassuring. Social media such as Hilton’s follow-us on Twitter widget and Hyatt’s Youtube link also popular.
• Airlines – prices displayed with asterisks made respondents feel they were being tricked. Weather updates and other useful information suggested as a replacement to airline’s own promotional ads.
• Price Comparison – search boxes were popular overall as were characters such as Travelocity’s gnome although Priceline’s William Shatner received mixed feedback – liked by 30% , disliked by 23%. Inspirational elements deemed to provide additional value.

The study involved 800 participants and 18 travel websites.

The airline recently unveiled its Perfect Days application on Facebook encouraging users to submit their ideal itineraries for any of the airline’s destinations around the globe.

A BA spokesperson said the airline now plans to focus on developing:

“its popular Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels”

The Metrotwin platform linked London and New York and enabled travellers to create profiles, make recommendations and submit reviews.

A similar service for Mumbai, launched in September 2009, will also close at the end of the month.

Virgin Atlantic also withdrew its Vtravelled community earlier this year with plans to give it a new focus and relaunch in the first quarter of next year.

Vtravelled was unveiled in June 2009.

The airline now has a 20.5% share compared to 11.5% for British Airways, with Ryanair nestling between the two with 14.5% share.

The trio have almost a 45% share combined, with Jet2 in fourth place with 5%.

Most popular travel websites in the UK for the week ending September 3 2011:

Agencies

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Thomson	www.thomson.co.uk	8.10%	1
2	Expedia.co.uk	www.expedia.co.uk	6.94%	2
3	Thomas Cook	www.thomascook.com	5.84%	3
4	Lastminute.com	www.lastminute.com	5.69%	4
5	TravelRepublic.co.uk	www.travelrepublic.co.uk	4.48%	5
6	First Choice	www.firstchoice.co.uk	2.59%	6
7	skyscanner	www.skyscanner.net	2.59%	7
8	Cheapflights.co.uk	www.cheapflights.co.uk	2.48%	8
9	travelsupermarket.com	www.travelsupermarket.com	2.45%	9
10	Travelzoo UK	www.travelzoo.com/uk	2.18%	10

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.co.uk	11.62%	1
2	Booking.com	www.booking.com	6.76%	2
3	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	3.26%	4
4	LateRooms.com	www.laterooms.com	3.23%	3
5	Travelodge UK	www.travelodge.co.uk	2.15%	5
6	Premier Inn	www.premierinn.com	1.73%	6
7	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	1.53%	7
8	Time Out	www.timeout.com	1.15%	10
9	InterContinental Hotels Group	www.ichotelsgroup.com	1.11%	9
10	The National Trust	www.nationaltrust.org.uk	1.01%	-

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	easyJet.com	www.easyjet.com	20.42%	1
2	Ryanair	www.ryanair.com	14.47%	2
3	British Airways	www.britishairways.com	11.44%	3
4	Jet2.com	www.jet2.com	4.94%	4
5	Virgin atlantic	www.virgin-atlantic.com	4.11%	5
6	Monarch.co.uk	www.monarch.co.uk	4.05%	6
7	Flybe	www.flybe.com	3.46%	7
8	Mal‚ev Hungarian Airlines	www.malev.com	3.45%	-
9	flythomascook.com	www.flythomascook.com	2.82%	9
10	Thomson Airways	flights.thomson.co.uk	2.71%	10

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	google maps	1.11%	1.82%	98.18%	1
2	national rail	0.66%	2.56%	97.44%	2
3	easyjet	0.56%	3.67%	96.33%	4
4	thomas cook	0.50%	35.18%	64.82%	3
5	ryanair	0.47%	2.55%	97.45%	5
6	tfl	0.46%	0.15%	99.85%	10
7	aa route planner	0.44%	1.22%	98.78%	6
8	train times	0.40%	18.00%	82.00%	9
9	maps	0.40%	0.14%	99.86%	8
10	thomson	0.39%	1.28%	98.72%	-

NB: Data courtesy of Experian Hitwise

The service allows users to create and theme an itinerary for their own ideal day in one of the airline’s destinations around the world.

It also allows consumers to comment on the perfect days of others and access hints and tips from BA staff.

The addition of Perfect Days follows other Facebook initiatives by the airline, including the Great Britons scheme to identify top professionals in cuisine, art and business, as well as a Foursquare-led project in September 2010 to reward commuters in New York City if they “checked-in” to a BA promotion at Grand Central Terminal.

One curious element to the project for BA, if it becomes popular with users, will be when fans of the Facebook page want to interact with staff who are leaving hints and tips for them.

The opportunity to offer that level of engagement to users may be hard to resist, but equally will need a strategy all of its own.

Neverthless, BA’s move is by no means the first foray by airline into developing an application on Facebook, with Malaysia Airlines booking and check-in service unveiled in February and KLM’s Tile and Inspire campaign at the end of April, as well as many standard Fan Pages associated with airlines around the world.

The pair have swapped places regularly this year, with Ryanair taking top spot once again last week.

Third placed British Airways lost 0.5% market share from last week, while Virgin Atlantic was overtaken by BMIbaby.

Most popular travel websites in the UK for the week ending August 20 2011:

Agencies

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Thomson	www.thomson.co.uk	8.26%	1
2	Expedia.co.uk	www.expedia.co.uk	6.76%	2
3	Thomas Cook	www.thomascook.com	6.28%	3
4	Lastminute.com	www.lastminute.com	5.64%	4
5	TravelRepublic.co.uk	www.travelrepublic.co.uk	4.49%	5
6	First Choice	www.firstchoice.co.uk	2.68%	6
7	skyscanner	www.skyscanner.net	2.47%	9
8	travelsupermarket.com	www.travelsupermarket.com	2.46%	7
9	Cheapflights.co.uk	www.cheapflights.co.uk	2.43%	8
10	teletext Holidays	www.teletextholidays.co.uk	2.21%	-

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.co.uk	11.42%	1
2	Booking.com	www.booking.com	6.64%	2
3	LateRooms.com	www.laterooms.com	3.55%	3
4	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	3.26%	4
5	Travelodge UK	www.travelodge.co.uk	2.06%	5
6	Premier Inn	www.premierinn.com	1.80%	6
7	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	1.56%	7
8	ukcampsite.co.uk	www.ukcampsite.co.uk	1.17%	8
9	Time Out	www.timeout.com	1.13%	10
10	InterContinental Hotels Group	www.ichotelsgroup.com	1.04%	9

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	easyJet.com	www.easyjet.com	20.56%	2
2	Ryanair	www.ryanair.com	19.18%	1
3	British Airways	www.britishairways.com	9.60%	3
4	Jet2.com	www.jet2.com	5.07%	4
5	Monarch.co.uk	www.monarch.co.uk	4.57%	5
6	Flybe	www.flybe.com	3.73%	6
7	bmibaby	www.bmibaby.com	3.21%	8
8	Virgin atlantic	www.virgin-atlantic.com	3.20%	7
9	flythomascook.com	www.flythomascook.com	3.02%	10
10	Thomson Airways	flights.thomson.co.uk	2.96%	9

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	google maps	1.08%	1.67%	98.33%	1
2	thomas cook	0.57%	37.01%	62.99%	2
3	national rail	0.55%	1.92%	98.08%	3
4	easyjet	0.52%	5.15%	94.85%	5
5	ryanair	0.48%	2.94%	97.06%	6
6	aa route planner	0.45%	1.13%	98.87%	7
7	thomson	0.43%	1.79%	98.21%	8
8	maps	0.41%	0.28%	99.72%	9
9	train times	0.39%	18.63%	81.37%	-
10	tfl	0.39%	0.13%	99.87%	4

NB: Data courtesy of Experian Hitwise

• British Airways launched its first affiliate marketing campaign in the US this week. The Buy.at network will be running the programme in the country, as part of a wider marketing strategy through Neo@Ogilvy. BA runs its UK affiliate activity through Buy.at sister agency Affiliate Window.

• War of words mounting between Global Business Travel Association and Lufthansa over credit card fees. The corp travel association claims changes being made by the airline to charge a credit card levy on GDS-based bookings will “add further confusion and damage relations with buyers because of increased cost and reduced transparency”. GBTA Europe advocacy group chairman, Hans Ingo Biehl, says the “primary concern” is whether charges are presented at the end of the booking, “when by rights it should be at the fare comparison stage at the beginning of the booking process”.

• Changes at European bedbank Youtravel.com, with group managing director Graham Nichols leaving the company immediately (citing personal reasons). Nichols will be replaced in part under executive director David Howell, a former group finance director at Lastminute.com and First Choice Holidays. UK and international sales director Matt Cheevers will become UK managing director.

• Tourism Australia is the latest high profile in-bound visitor website to strike a deal with TripAdvisor. The tourism organisation’s NothingLikeAustralia.com site will carry customer reviews of things to do and other activities in the country. The partnership is powered by the Australian Data Warehouse (ATDW), the national tourism B2B platform.