Singapore Airlines customers clamor for the old website as the chief apologises for the “troubled’ new one

Singapore Airlines Chief Executive Officer Goh Choon Phong has issued today, July 14, a public letter apologising for the inconvenience that their new website has caused but customers said that they want the old one back while the firm make necessary changes.

Here are some of the letters of passengers sent to Singapore Business Reviews via e-mail regarding the issue:

From a certain Stephen from Sydney, Australia

I cannot understand how senior IT Management has allowed this new website to continue to be used and not forced the new website to be backed-out and for the old website to be used until such time as the new website had undergone more rigorous acceptance testing. I can only think that the reason for not doing so is that Singapore does not want to lose face.

This has to be the worst implementation of a commercial website that I have ever come across!. How on earth was this web site allowed to go "live" with so many obvious errors that should have been detected through any normal quality control and
acceptance procedures?

For an airline that prides itself on its inflight and on-the-ground service, the new website is a complete disappointment so much so that it would easily encourage someone to switch to another carrier. It's impossible to accept the response by Singapore Airlines phone staff that the problems are "just a few teething issues".

To begin with I would get rid of this italic font as it's extremely difficult on the eyes and for readability and revert to the same font that's used on the website to name fields.

Another issue is when attempting to book a multi-city itinerary. It makes it very difficult to book itineraries without a drop-down calendar which is what used to be found on the previous websiteand is a booking aid that's used by just about most other airlines.

Reading online at a number of airline forums and reports in the press the woes of using the new Singapore Airlines site, it doesn't instill confidence in making an online booking for flights with Singapore Airlines and it'sobviously driving more bookings to be made via phone or with another carrier altogether.

If I were the CIO of Singapore Airlines I would insist on the website being backed out and I would seriously council the IT project management team who were involved and fire the project manager for incompetence.

I still believe that Singapore Airlines has a far superior product to that of its competitors but my faith in the airline has been seriously shaken by
such a poor implemention of its new web site!

From a certain Robin Tan

I have been a frequent flyer of SIA for many years and quite a regular user of their web-site, before and after their change, to check on my account, book tickets, seat selections, redemptions etc. To suggest that their new web-site is faulty is a MAJOR understatement. It is snail slow, unstable and I can’t find a single thing that works or is user-friendly in this new website. It is a total disaster of epic proportion. NOTHING works. It has been a total disaster for several weeks and possibly months. If this is an airplane it would have crashed.

After several complains to their PPS dept I have stopped using it as I felt that complains had fell on the deaf-ears of SIA management. They simply do not care as they are probably not frequent user of their own web-site nor do they bear the brunt of angry and unhappy users. I do feel sorry for the people working at their call centre and PPS sites. I don’t think they fully understand the consequences of what a faulty web-site like this can mean to the image quality of their brand which they took so long to nurture. If their tolerance for such a faulty web-site extend to their tolerance of faulty aircrafts, I would be afraid to fly with SIA ever again. Both predicaments would surely lead to a crash. This is not simply an issue about web-sites but rather howSIA management treat and tolerate quality or rather lack in quality.

SIA management have forgotten that they are selling quality with an assumption that their airplanes are 100% faultless and this surely should and must extend to their web-site.

From a certain Julian Philips based on London

I have been trying to book tickets from London to New Zealand for 4 weeks now, with no success!

This is a public relations disaster for Singapore Air, and Singapore, in the UK and my family and friends are extremely disappointed in the level of customer service provided by them in such a difficult period. The only way to book a flight it seems is to use the telephone, but the level of service is sub-standard and the prices are higher than on the website!

To contact the journalist, you may send your message to krisana@charltonmediamail.com