Flyibaby From United States of America, joined Aug 2004, 1015 posts, RR: 6 Reply 1, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 7 hours ago) and read 7103 times:
I am 99.9% sure that Alaska Airlines was the first to sell tickets online. They actually cover that in their new hire orientation. I don't know who had a website first.
Gunsontheroof From United States of America, joined Jan 2006, 3460 posts, RR: 11 Reply 2, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 7096 times:
Quoting Flyibaby (Reply 1): I am 99.9% sure that Alaska Airlines was the first to sell tickets online. They actually cover that in their new hire orientation. I don't know who had a website first.
Beat me to it. I'd imagine they'd have to be among the first to have a website as well...can't really see the point of having a website with no ticket sales!
HA_DC9 From United States of America, joined Jul 1999, 645 posts, RR: 1 Reply 3, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 7076 times:
Looks like AS was the first to have a website according to this USA Today article:
Atrude777 From United States of America, joined Aug 2003, 5613 posts, RR: 54 Reply 4, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 7061 times:
Hmmh it seems Southwest Airlines was.
Not sure of the difference?
Taken from southwest.com
Southwest was the first airline to establish a home page on the Internet. Initially, five Employees comprised Southwest’s web site development team, and the site took about nine months to create.
In 2005, passenger revenue generated by online bookings equaled 65 percent compared to approximately 59 percent in 2004. In first quarter 2006, approximately 68 percent of passenger revenue was generated by online bookings via southwest.com.
southwest.com is the number one airline website for online revenue according to PhoCusWright. Nielsen/Netratings also reports that southwest.com is the largest airline site in terms of unique visitors.
Alex
Good things come to those who wait, better things come to those who go AFTER it!
Zrs70 From United States of America, joined Dec 2000, 2872 posts, RR: 10 Reply 5, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 7056 times:
While not a true AA website, EasySAAbre was around in 1993/4.
FlyPIJets From United States of America, joined Oct 2003, 822 posts, RR: 2 Reply 7, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 4 days 23 hours ago) and read 6849 times:
Here is a fun website. The internet wayback machine. An archive of websites.
Gmcc From United States of America, joined Apr 2006, 186 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 4 days 22 hours ago) and read 6707 times:
AS was the first in the US to sell tickets. An airline in Europe was the first to sell ticket on the internet.
EI321 From Iraq, joined Jul 2009, 0 posts, RR: 0 Reply 10, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 4 days 19 hours ago) and read 6413 times:
Heres another question, what airline has the highest & of internet bookings? Im guessing Ryanair - they have about 98% of bookings made direct from their website. Im surprised southwest is only like 70%
CXH From Canada, joined Oct 2004, 139 posts, RR: 0 Reply 11, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 4 days 15 hours ago) and read 6231 times:
Quoting Joffie (Thread starter): Just doing a report of the internet, and history and would be interested in:
1) The first airline to offer a website
(and)
2) First airline to offer online bookings
I guess it depends which question you're asking! Not sure who had the first website, but who took the first booking....
I've always heard that British Midland (now BMI) was the first to offer bookings via a website. I found this link that seems to support it since Alaska's first website booking wasn't until Dec 28, 1995. SITA (yeah, that SITA as in "Gabriel", etc.) fuzzily claims the first BMI booking happened on Dec 10, 1995 or the day after that.
KELPkid From United States of America, joined Nov 2005, 5929 posts, RR: 4 Reply 12, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 4 days 12 hours ago) and read 6106 times:
Quoting Atrude777 (Reply 4): Southwest was the first airline to establish a home page on the Internet. Initially, five Employees comprised Southwest’s web site development team, and the site took about nine months to create.
It is interesting to note, it took WN several years to acquire the southwest.com domain name from a plumbing supply company in the Dallas area...the original WN website was http://www.iflyswa.com/ I remember booking my first web ticket in 1996
Celebrating the birth of KELPkidJR on August 5, 2009 :-)
MoMan From United States of America, joined Aug 2004, 1048 posts, RR: 4 Reply 13, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 4 days 12 hours ago) and read 6072 times:
I bought airline tickets off the web in summer 1997 from Southwest. I know I wasn't the first, but no one in my family could believe that I purchased off the web and it was a novelty. The website was www.iflyswa.com.
Lincoln From United States of America, joined Nov 2004, 3887 posts, RR: 8 Reply 14, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 4 days 11 hours ago) and read 6022 times:
Quoting KELPkid (Reply 12): It is interesting to note, it took WN several years to acquire the southwest.com domain name from a plumbing supply company in the Dallas area...the original WN website was http://www.iflyswa.com/ I remember booking my first web ticket in 1996
In digging back, it looks like Southwest wasn't the only one...
northwest.com still goes somewhere completely different than the ailine (nwa.com)
Continental was originally found at flycontinental.com, and so on and soforth...
Lincoln
CO Is My Airline of Choice || Baggage Claim is an airline's last chance to disappoint a customer || Next flts in profile
Jano From Slovakia, joined Jan 2004, 814 posts, RR: 4 Reply 15, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 4 days 11 hours ago) and read 5999 times:
Quoting KELPkid (Reply 12): It is interesting to note, it took WN several years to acquire the southwest.com domain name from a plumbing supply company in the Dallas area..
the same case for DL. It used to be www.delta-air.com and delta.com was for Delta faucets.
KELPkid From United States of America, joined Nov 2005, 5929 posts, RR: 4 Reply 16, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 4 days 11 hours ago) and read 5964 times:
AA.com originally belonged to a Japanese chemical company as well (and the website was in Japanese!).
Celebrating the birth of KELPkidJR on August 5, 2009 :-)
KELPkid From United States of America, joined Nov 2005, 5929 posts, RR: 4 Reply 18, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 4 days 9 hours ago) and read 5511 times:
Quoting WSOY (Reply 17): domain name finnair.fi
status: issued
applied for/issued Jan 1st, 1991
expires Aug 31, 2009
A Domain registry is different from a web site...there might have been a few people around on Jan 1st, 1991 that knew about the CERN world wide web project I certainly didn't (despite the fact that I was a university student who knew about the internet and was using it to e-mail all my friends at other universities). I learned about gopher later that year...ever seen a gopher page?
EDIT: I also learned about ftp and wuarchive.wustl.edu, so that I could download games for my HP 48SX calculator
[Edited 2006-09-28 03:49:15]
Celebrating the birth of KELPkidJR on August 5, 2009 :-)
Aeroflot777 From Russia, joined Mar 2004, 2957 posts, RR: 30 Reply 19, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 4 days 7 hours ago) and read 4808 times:
Quoting FlyPIJets (Reply 7): Here is a fun website. The internet wayback machine. An archive of websites.
Archive . ORG
Damn you got me addicted. What an amazing website. Thanks for linking! Truly astonishing to see everything evolving. Especially looking back at all the airline websites!
DTW757 From United States of America, joined Oct 2003, 1415 posts, RR: 2 Reply 20, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 4 days 7 hours ago) and read 4739 times:
Quoting Zrs70 (Reply 5): While not a true AA website, EasySAAbre was around in 1993/4.
If I remember right, I searched for flights back in 1990 or 91 with EasySAAbre on Prodigy.
UAL757 From United States of America, joined Sep 2006, 803 posts, RR: 4 Reply 21, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 4 days 7 hours ago) and read 4661 times:
PIA777 From United States of America, joined Dec 2003, 1738 posts, RR: 7 Reply 23, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 4 days 5 hours ago) and read 4497 times:
I could have sworn that United offered online bookings when "Prodigy"
came out in the early 90s.
KELPkid From United States of America, joined Nov 2005, 5929 posts, RR: 4 Reply 24, posted (6 years 7 months 3 weeks 3 days 17 hours ago) and read 4325 times:
Quoting PIA777 (Reply 23): I could have sworn that United offered online bookings when "Prodigy"
came out in the early 90s.
PIA777
Probably not internet-based, however.
Before the Internet, many online services offered proprietary stuff...Compuserve, IIRC, interfaced with SABRE.
Celebrating the birth of KELPkidJR on August 5, 2009 :-)
25 F9Animal: Awesome site! Yes, this brings back sooooo many great memories. Thanks!!!!! LMAO! Yeah, I am addicted now myself! I actually had to take a break, as
27 N1120A: Southwest still sells a lot of tickets that end up on paper ticket stock, namely from their Southwest Airlines Vacations division. Further, they stil
28 Noelg: BA were online in March 1997 - http://web.archive.org/web/199703300...7/http://www2.british-airways.com/ I had a newspaper round at the time and saw a
29 WSOY: People always think the CERN www was the start of the Internet, and forget the Internet email and ftp services. In Finland the first Internet domain
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I certainly didn't (despite the fact that I was a university student who knew about the internet and was using it to e-mail all my friends at other universities). I learned about gopher later that year...ever seen a gopher page?
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