South African Airways Website Revamp:Fancy but Slow

If you hadn't noticed,South African Airways just gave their website a brand new look.There no fancy flash introductions and displays.It's been designed with the end user in mind;to simplify the booking process and navigation.

"Lowest fares booked today"

• It provides travelers/agencies with "list of lowest fares booked today"


• After you enter where your departure airport,it takes about 2 minutes to calculate the list of possible routes to your destination(more convenient for end user).For example,a one way flight to NBO booked online will yield the following flight and fare options:

Possible routes to my destination in Nairobi(NBO) from Jo'burg(JNB)

•  The website also has session timeout.meaning that if you open the flysaa.com website and the page is idle after a few minutes,it "times you out" prompting you to go back to the main site(refresh).No idling here guys!I think this is also a security feature to protect personal info when booking your flight.

"Your session has expired":This will be a common feature in the new look SAA website

•  Onbiz travel:I think this is a new feature.South African Airways’ OnBiz division, is a complete online service for company travel.


• I love the way they have utilized the bottom of their page.Instead of posting a 1001 links,they simply placed four banners displaying various offers,their environmental program,their AVIS car hire program plus more goodies.This smart use of the bottom page reminds me of the Emirates website!

Smart use of the bottom page of the revamped SAA website

I think most users will love the new look FlySAA website for its pragmatic "first things first" approach:ease of booking and ease of navigation. 
One problem is that the revamped website takes an eternity to load,it took close to 2 minutes to load on my PC and this is one of the reasons it drew ire from some social media users.I wonder how many African travelers,who typically should have low internet speeds will go about accessing SAA's revamped website.

That is why instead of kudos,we had comments like "Note to #airlines launching 'the new look' of your website, before you blast everyone via e-mail & Facebook make sure it works & loads fast"
What do you think of South African Airways revamped website?You can also join the conversion on Twitter.Use the two words #flysaa #website and join the conversation.