EasyJetwill redesign its website usingWeb 2.0technologies to allow
customers to plan complete holiday itineraries rather than just
book flights within the next year.
Paul Curtis, head of application architecture at EasyJet, said
the airline wanted to make
easyjet.com a travel planning
destination, rather than simple a flight booking engine, as this
would lead to more sales.
"Only 40% of visitors to the site know when and where they are
travelling. So if they find it difficult to find the ideal flight
and hotel in combination, the remaining 60% will go elsewhere," he
said.
The new web application is being developed for launch next year.
It uses an Ajax software
controller to let customers specify travel dates and uses
Microsoft's
Silverlight
interface which shows a map which changes as the customer
alters their travel preferences.
The new website will also use external applications such as
Microsoft Virtual
Earth to let customers explore their destination in detail and
will accept feeds of data from other hotel and car hire websites
such as
TripAdvisor.com.
"The real value is in the external data we can consume and relay
to our customers. We are looking to build an architecture where we
hold less data locally and only access what we need over the
internet on an on-demand basis, when our customers need it."
The company is currently using Windows Server 2003 and SQL
Server 2005 to build the application, but plans to upgrade to
Windows
Server 2008 with
Internet
Information Server 7 for a full launch.
"One of the challenges we saw in building a new interface was
that, for us to offer that rich user experience, we needed a
platform to support the increase in traffic and one that can load
bigger pages."
Curtis said that being able to configure the software modules
that are loaded into an application when the web services start was
a key feature in being able to fine-tune the website for optimal
performance.