Breaker1011 From United States of America, joined Nov 2007, 938 posts, RR: 2 Reply 2, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 5 days 9 hours ago) and read 2160 times:
If I remember correctly, AA might have been the first - at least in the US. I seem to think that 1995-1996 might have been the magic year. I worked parttime there through school, and I can remember the hubbub and the training in fact. At first I believe the only functionality was flifo, schedules, and limited fare quotes, then booking came later.
Life's tough. It's even tougher if you're stupid. J. Wayne
M180up From El Salvador, joined May 2006, 403 posts, RR: 6 Reply 3, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 5 days 9 hours ago) and read 2119 times:
i think it was alaska airlines AS in the united states.. at least where u could make a reservation:
Alaska and Horizon have long pioneered technology to improve the customer experience. The airlines were the first in North America to sell tickets online in 1995 and, four years later, were the first carriers worldwide to offer Internet check-in and boarding passes. Today, two-thirds of the airlines' customers check in online or at one of 444 kiosks at
80 airports.
Rwessel From United States of America, joined Jan 2007, 1989 posts, RR: 2 Reply 4, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 5 days 9 hours ago) and read 2116 times:
Well, the Internet Archive Wayback Machine can help a little here (remembering that the Wayback Machine does not have any content archived from before 1996):
United (www.ual.com at the time) has a real web page at least back to 12/21/96.
AA doesn't seem to have an entry prior to 99, but that can't be right, I must not be guessing the URL correctly.
Lufthansa also has entries back to '96.
Continental has one back to '98 (prior to that www.continental.com is the URL for a cable company).
Southwest has one back to late '97.
In all cases guessing some of the early URLs is going to be a bit of a trick, as many of the current URLs are *not* the same as the sites used originally.
Breaker1011 From United States of America, joined Nov 2007, 938 posts, RR: 2 Reply 5, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 5 days 8 hours ago) and read 2096 times:
AA.com was bought by AMR in 1998. Still can't find the original URL - I remember it was wierd though. "american-air" or something like that is on the tip of my tongue. Still looking thought that site - it's pretty cool!
Life's tough. It's even tougher if you're stupid. J. Wayne
RW170 From United States of America, joined Sep 2007, 430 posts, RR: 0 Reply 6, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 5 days 8 hours ago) and read 2085 times:
BNinMSY From United States of America, joined Nov 2005, 332 posts, RR: 0 Reply 7, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 5 days 8 hours ago) and read 2076 times:
I think Continental was www.iflycontinental.com because that cable company beat them and Southwest was also www.iflysouthwest.com in the beginning ... because other companies had secure the domain names first.
Can't recall American yet. I could be off on these two .. but I'm nearly certain about WN. Continental might have been www.coair.com ...
CAETravlr From United States of America, joined Oct 2000, 898 posts, RR: 1 Reply 8, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 5 days 8 hours ago) and read 2053 times:
Breaker1011 From United States of America, joined Nov 2007, 938 posts, RR: 2 Reply 9, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 5 days 8 hours ago) and read 2035 times:
Rwessel From United States of America, joined Jan 2007, 1989 posts, RR: 2 Reply 10, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 5 days 8 hours ago) and read 2034 times:
Some additional results based on the above suggestions:
ScottB From United States of America, joined Jul 2000, 6358 posts, RR: 34 Reply 11, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 5 days 8 hours ago) and read 2022 times:
Nope, Southwest was www.iflyswa.com originally, which made some sense given that their reservations number is 1-800-I-FLY-SWA. Continental was simply www.flycontinental.com, while Delta was www.delta-air.com. Delta actually kept with delta-air.com for a long time; the winter 1998-99 timetable still lists www.delta-air.com as their address. Southwest put their web site in 1995 and called it their "Home Gate" (it used to look like a boarding gate). I remember booking a ticket out of PVD in late 1996 on iflyswa.com shortly after Southwest both started service from PVD and made online booking available.
Quoting Zrs70 (Thread starter): At what point in the 90's did the airlines start to publish web addresses on their advertising materials?
There's a reference to www.delta-air.com in a late 1997 Delta timetable I have. The airlines really didn't start promoting their own web sites more heavily until the late 1990's as the Internet boom was gaining steam and they saw the success of travel websites like Travelocity (formerly Eaasy Sabre) and Expedia.
Viscount724 From Switzerland, joined Oct 2006, 21465 posts, RR: 24 Reply 12, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 4 days 17 hours ago) and read 1842 times:
If memory correct, DL finally made a deal with the Delta faucet and plumbing supplies company to take over their delta.com address. I'm sure a fair amount of cash changed hands. I can recall looking for DL's site a few times in those days and guessing at the address and winding up at what is now this company's site: http://www.deltafaucet.com/wps/portal/deltacom/
Their current logo and typeface even resembles DL's!
SWABrian From United States of America, joined Nov 2007, 299 posts, RR: 2 Reply 13, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 4 days 16 hours ago) and read 1805 times:
The first Southwest web site went live on March 16, 1995. The site didn't have the ability to sell tickets, and it was called the "Southwest Airlines Home Gate." On April 30, 1996, the purchase option was added.
Brian
Jacobin777 From United States of America, joined Sep 2004, 14968 posts, RR: 61 Reply 15, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 4 days 13 hours ago) and read 1677 times:
Quoting Breaker1011 (Reply 2): If I remember correctly, AA might have been the first - at least in the US. I seem to think that 1995-1996 might have been the magic year. I worked parttime there through school, and I can remember the hubbub and the training in fact. At first I believe the only functionality was flifo, schedules, and limited fare quotes, then booking came later.
Quoting Rwessel (Reply 4):
AA doesn't seem to have an entry prior to 99, but that can't be right, I must not be guessing the URL correctly.
I'm quite sure I've been booking on AA's site since 1996....Definitely since 1997 when I used to fly ORD-LGA-ORD quite often...
Centrair From Japan, joined Jan 2005, 3597 posts, RR: 21 Reply 17, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 4 days 2 hours ago) and read 1494 times:
I remember looking up airlines back in 1996-1997 to help build a resource for students at my university (this is how I stumbled upon a little site known as Airliners.net.) I put in www.delta.com and was given Delta Dental Insurance (which 4 years later screwed me over on a major dental surgery).
Northwest airlines was late to the game. It seems that when NWA was starting to look for a new image, the www.nwa.com address was started. Now it is all over their aircraft.
NOTE: www.aa.com is one of the shortest web address names out there. There is no www.a.com.
Yes...I am not a KIX fan. Let's Japanese Aviation!
Jano From Slovakia, joined Jan 2004, 814 posts, RR: 4 Reply 18, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 3 days 22 hours ago) and read 1436 times:
Quoting Centrair (Reply 17): Northwest airlines was late to the game. It seems that when NWA was starting to look for a new image, the www.nwa.com address was started. Now it is all over their aircraft.
March 28 Northwest introduces its World Web home page on the Internet at http://www.nwa.com.
December 10 Northwest teams with Microsoft and Worldspan to develop an on-line web site booking service.
1997
March 27 Northwest announces availability of secured, on-line booking via its WorldWeb site at http://www.nwa.com.
I remember when I arrived to the USA in October of 1997 and started to look for the airfares the Northwest's airfare search engine was working (among others).
2175301 From United States of America, joined May 2007, 982 posts, RR: 0 Reply 19, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 3 days 22 hours ago) and read 1401 times:
So, the real question - for the serious internet buff... Is when did an airline first connect to what we now know as the internet for any business purpose?
In the early 80's I was able to download data files from Northwest Airlines while in college (UW Madison). Of course, back then it was not called the internet; and was largely restricted to military bases, Universities, Government, and large companies (many of which had some tie to the military or with universities).
Also back then, you did not have what we call web pages either. First you had to know a company (or government site) address (by numbers not by name). Then you could send a message to that site to get a list of available files (in many cases the files might be a listing of files in a group). In the end you would send a message with the specific file name and were able to retrieve that file. All the files in those days were data files or text files. Text headers would often give you the information you needed to import a data set into another program (was the information comma eliminated, 4 columns, 3 columns, etc).
You could also send a file to a specific location at such companies as well (the precursor to modern email).
Available data from Northwest Airlines was largely passenger loads (plane capacity, actual per flight) and flight completions and delays (schedule compliance). University students could use the data to do studies and write papers for advanced classes - or even masters programs on airline transportation - and Northwest got "free" research in return for making the files available.
I am not sure how many other airlines did similar things; but I suspect NW was not the only one who did this.
Srbmod From United States of America, joined Mar 2001, 16888 posts, RR: 51 Reply 20, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 3 days 22 hours ago) and read 1380 times:
Quoting Aircanada014 (Reply 14): According to the copy right for Air Canada's website its 1994.
The oldest listing for AC's website of the Internet Archives site goes back to October 29, 1996 (www.aircanada.ca).
1996-97 seems to be the time frame when airlines started to put up a web presence. This is also why for many years, they had oddball addresses (like fly[insert airline name here].com) or used a variation of the airline name like Delta-air or used the full airline name.) because some of the domain names they now use were owned by cybersquatters and they had to either negotiate with those owners, pursue legal actions to obtain the addresses, or wait for the ownership to lapse.
VV701 From United Kingdom, joined Aug 2005, 6619 posts, RR: 17 Reply 21, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 3 days 12 hours ago) and read 1295 times:
Quoting Srbmod (Reply 20): 1996-97 seems to be the time frame when airlines started to put up a web presence. This is also why for many years, they had oddball addresses (like fly[insert airline name here].com) or used a variation of the airline name like Delta-air or used the full airline name.) because some of the domain names they now use were owned by cybersquatters and they had to either negotiate with those owners, pursue legal actions to obtain the addresses, or wait for the ownership to lapse.
This situation may even have influenced the actual naming of at least one airline. I recall searching for 'deutscheba'. I got a web page that read words to the effect of 'deutscheba.com This domain name is for sale.'
After 'Deutsche BA' was sold by BA and before it was absorbed by Air Berlin this airline renamed itself 'dba' and used the web site 'dba.com'. It seems feasible that this happened to maximise passenger use of the existing web site.
STT757 From United States of America, joined Mar 2000, 16256 posts, RR: 52 Reply 22, posted (5 years 4 months 2 weeks 3 days 12 hours ago) and read 1276 times:
CO's goes back prior to '97, it was late '94 or early '95. I remember reading the announcement of the website in my Onepass statement.
I went to my local library as that was the only place I knew of with Internet access near me, it took me a while but I found the website. I think I found it by going on Yahoo and typing in the address.
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