For some odd reason the Aer Lingus website is now defaulting to the display for US visitors. I’ve tried this from several different IP ranges and it always does the same thing.
Haven’t they heard of Geo IP??
Jul 31
AerLingus.com – Taken Over by Americans?
by Michele in Techie :: Techno ::, Thoughts :: Pensieri ::, Web Design
34 Responses to “AerLingus.com – Taken Over by Americans?”
From Richard Hearne:
Maybe they’re just trying to annoy you.
I get the Irish site on http://www.aerlingus.com.
Try it through a proxy and see what they serve you?
From michele:
I’m already behind a proxy here
Who is your ISP?
From Richard Hearne:
digiweb
From Cian:
http://www.aerlingus.com/ gets me US cities, even http://www.aerlingus.ie redirects me to the same.
From Ken McGuire:
thats a good one… just going 7pm and its dishing out all the english ones, i’m behind a chorus IP based out of kilkenny.
From Pete:
I’m on NTL in work and at home – and both redirect me to the “americanised” version – really cheeses me off – especially when I hit aerlingus.ie!!!!
From michele:
I wonder how much this is costing them in sales. If an Italian were to end up on the US version of the site would they even bother to choose their country from the dropdown? Would they even be able to?
From Richard Hearne:
I still get Irish results.
Is anyone gonna take it upon themselves to let them know?
Actually has anyone tried to see what’s coming back through a US/foreugn proxy? I wonder what the’re serving up to others around the globe?
From michele:
Richard
I couldn’t see anywhere to report website issues…
Michele
From Richard Hearne:
Contact Us page.
Gave them a call and spoke to a nice girl who probably thought I was a nutter.
Funily enough when I tried to explain that the site was serving US pages to Irish visitors she immediately told me that there was a box in the top RH corner for choosing the country.
She said she would take a note and pass it on to their tech people.
Lets wait and see how long it takes – should be very interesting to see their response time.
Oh yeah I gave her your URL so they can check the comments.
From Pete:
Try the following steps.
1. Goto http://www.aerlingus.com
2. Click “need help” link at the top of the page
3. Click help enquiry link
4. Pop up window will appear.
5. Since no options says “Website” or something relevant, select Other
6. You will get a generic form (I havent tested it, so no guarantees it works )
From Pete:
Oh and dont try and be cute clicking the first option in the dropdown, as they use javascript to redirect when you make a choice
From adam:
I didn’t get any site, because I went to aerlingus.com instead of http://www.aerlingus.com. No A record for the domain itself. Stupid bastards.
From michele:
Adam – You’ll get that with a lot of Eircom / Esat controlled domains. Supposedly some RFC or other …
From cgarvey:
I’ve reported it twice over the last year (by phone the 2nd time). Whatever about GeoIP, you’d think aerlingus.ie would default to Country == Ireland!
It’s nothing new, though, as it’s been like that for me for well over a year. My ISP is eircom, and my static IP block are IE in RIPE.
.cg
From adam:
You shouldn’t munge addresses on mailing lists either, it’s NAUGHTY. Talk about living in the past like…
From Elvin:
On EsatBT here and getting UK departure cities with United Kingdom displayed in the Country dropdown.
http://www.aerlingus.com/cgi-bin/obel01im1/bookonline/index.jsp
http://aerlingus.ie re-directs to this also
I booked a flight last month and thought it odd having to select Ireland as country on an Irish airline’s site.
From michele:
Adam
Oh give over. If I pasted full URLs they’d wrap and people would whine
Cathal – I only noticed when I started shopping for flights
From adam:
Michele ca-an’t li-ink, Michele ca-an’t li-ink!
From Pete:
Try the site with IE
From michele:
That is demented!
From michele:
Ah this is maddening. Even the links in their newsletter don’t work properly in Firefox.
From Kevin Cannon:
Set you language settings in Firefox to en-ie as the priority and it works. I think IE automatically picks up the system language settings, while Firefox doesnt’.
From michele:
Kevin
That’s just silly. If they coded the site properly this wouldn’t happen. They could easily use a geoip lookup to work out where I am and redirect me to the correct version of the website.
Michele
From Martin Mulligan:
Fly British Airways
From michele:
Martin
I might just do that
Michele
From linda.e:
up untill now i thought it was just my problem
i am living in germany and i can get front page germany but it always redirects me to the same and i could not book a flight for months either i flew with ryan air or got someone in ireland to book it
crazzzzy…….
From michele:
Linda
Considering how important online sales are for Aer Lingus it amazes me that they still haven’t rectified it!
From anon:
I suspect they use your browser settings when deciding what homepage & language to display.
IE : tools / internet options / languages.
Firefox : tools / options/ advanced / edit languages.
From michele:
And so I am expected to tweak _my_ settings so that _they_ can sell to me?
Hmmmm
Interesting ….
From Kevin Cannon:
No, Firefox users just have to click on the drop-down menu is all.
Really, it’s mildly annoying, but it only affects a fraction of their user base, but on the whole it’s a minor inconvenience. They’re unlikely to lose sales over it. It’s akin to having a slightly stiff door on the entrance to a shop, nothing more.
From anon:
Michele, they’re probably just assuming you have your language and locale set up to suit yourself already, so if you speak English and you’re in Ireland you have en_ie, or if you’re in Britain you have en_gb etc.
From Ian:
Find it infuriating too, how do you complain and will it make any difference.
From michele:
@Kevin – anything that put an obstacle in the way of a sale is a bad thing.
@Anon – It’s a dangerous assumption
@Ian – No idea to be honest. I think a couple of people have tried to no avail already