An experience that starts with turbulence won’t sell a smooth flight. The journey begins on your screen, not the runway. Long before the boarding call, before the stress of the security line, and before a passenger ever experiences the comfort of their seat, they experience your website. That digital interaction is the true start of their journey with you, and your first opportunity to impress your brand ethos upon them.
For the modern traveler, a clunky, confusing website isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s a red flag. It creates friction and anxiety at a time when they are looking for reassurance and ease. The experience you provide online must be a direct reflection of the seamless, efficient, and hospitable service you provide in the air.
By thinking holistically about the digital experience, and optimizing your website to match user expectations, you can turn a stressful process into a smooth takeoff, converting browsers into loyal passengers.
Your brand experience begins before the runway
The core challenge for any airline is to translate the feeling of a well-serviced flight into a digital format. When a passenger is onboard, your team is trained to anticipate needs, offer comfort, and provide clear information. Your website must be held to the same high standard. Every page, every button, and every form is a touchpoint that either builds confidence or creates doubt.
Think of your homepage as your virtual gate agent, welcoming travelers and guiding them effortlessly to where they need to go. Is the booking engine intuitive? Is information about baggage fees easy to find? Can a passenger change their seat without a headache? These aren’t just usability questions; they’re brand questions. A frictionless digital experience tells your passengers that you value their time and are committed to making their entire journey, from booking to landing, a positive one.
Business or pleasure? Crafting journeys for the ‘why’
Not every passenger arrives on your website with the same mission. A business traveler flying to a conference has a vastly different intent than a family planning their summer holiday. The first needs efficiency and directness; the second is looking for inspiration and value. A one-size-fits-all website serves neither of them well.
The power of tailoring the journey can be seen in the work we did with Evolve Vacation Rental. They recognized that a user arriving from a high-intent Google search (“how to rent my vacation home”) was ready for a different conversation than a user who clicked a brand-aware ad on Facebook. Working with us, they tailored their landing pages to match that intent, and spoke to each user’s specific needs.
Airlines can apply the exact same logic. A visitor searching for a specific flight route and date is on a mission. Their journey should be streamlined, with clear calls-to-action for booking and relevant upsells like seat upgrades or lounge access. In contrast, a visitor arriving from a broad search like “flights to Spain” is in a discovery phase. Their landing page should be rich with inspirational content: fare sales, destination guides, or travel ideas. By segmenting your audience by their ‘why,’ you can create a more relevant and effective journey for everyone.
Make self-service a first-class experience
Flying comes with a checklist of necessary tasks: booking, checking in, amending details, and adding extras. The more of these actions a passenger can complete themselves, quickly and easily, the less stressful their experience will be. Your goal should be to make your website’s self-service functionality a first-class experience.
This often comes down to simple, intuitive design. The travel agency Iberojet, for example, questioned whether the tabs on their homepage were in the most logical order for their users. By running a test and switching the order of their “Holiday Packages” and “Travel Circuits” tabs to better reflect user behavior, they increased clicks on the “Search” button by a huge 25%.
Similarly, consider the lesson from SuperShuttle, who found that their social media icons weren’t getting much engagement. By redesigning their footer to make the icons more prominent, they saw a massive increase in traffic to their social pages. Sometimes it really is as simple as making things clearer.
For airlines, the takeaway is clear: make your primary calls-to-action for essential tasks like “Check-In Online” or “Manage My Booking” unmissable.
Turn loyalty from a program into a perk
For many passengers, the true value of an airline loyalty program isn’t just about accumulating miles for a future trip. It’s about the immediate, friction-reducing perks that make the travel day smoother: priority boarding, preferred seat selection, or an extra baggage allowance. The challenge is that the sign-up process itself can often feel like a point of friction.
To encourage sign-ups, the process needs to be as seamless as possible. The travel company OUI.sncf wanted to increase account creations and realized that the traditional sign-up form was a barrier. By running a test and adding a social login option via Facebook, they made the process significantly easier. The result was an 18% increase in account creations and a 9% lift in transactions from logged-in users.
Once a passenger has an account, the real value emerges. By securely saving key details like passport numbers, frequent flyer information, and meal preferences, you can transform a ten-minute booking process into a two-minute one. This is how loyalty moves from being an abstract program to a tangible, valuable perk that passengers appreciate every time they fly.
From lost connection to brand connection
Even on the best-designed websites, users can sometimes get stuck. A complex fare rule, a confusing payment page, or a simple user error can lead to frustration and an abandoned booking. The most forward-thinking airlines anticipate these moments and have a plan to turn that potential friction into a positive brand interaction.
We saw this principle play out perfectly with travel agency Havas Voyages. Their team implemented a smart strategy using exit-intent technology. When the site detected a user was about to leave a page, it didn’t just let them go. It proactively triggered a pop-up that offered an appointment with a human travel planner at the nearest physical agency. They saved the lead by offering a different path forward.
For an airline, this principle can be modernized with live chat or AI-powered chatbots. Imagine a user hesitating on the payment page. A small chatbot window could appear, asking, “Having trouble? I can help with common questions about payment or baggage.” This automated, helpful intervention can solve problems instantly. For more complex issues, the chatbot can escalate the conversation to a live agent. This transforms a moment of potential failure into an opportunity to provide excellent, real-time customer service, reinforcing your brand’s commitment to a stress-free journey.
Curious about how your website can be better optimized for people? We’re here to help you build up brave ideas into brilliant results. Let’s talk about what you want to achieve.
