Your flight is a click away

The days of going to a travel agency are, for some of us, a distant memory. Every major airline in the world has a
website, but the number of services and options on those sites vary tremendously.

Scott Shuey, Chief Reporter, takes a look at 10 of the websites of some of the biggest airlines serving theUAE and see what they offer and just how well they work.

Rating criteria:

The rating, out of five, reflects the website itself, not quality of the airlines or the services they provide. When we reviewed these sites, we looked at the following points:

1. Functionality: Does the website work? It doesn't matter how great the site looks if users are greeted by error screens or lengthy delays.

2. User-friendly: How easy was the site to navigate? Was there a confusing mishmash of icons and dead ends, or was the site laid out in a way the made it easy to use.

3. Comprehensiveness: Could I book my entire vacation through the website, or did I have to go elsewhere to find
accommodations? Having special getaway packages in this category was a plus.

4. Connections: How good was the websites at getting people from "Point A" to "Point B"? Some sites couldn't even find connections between places the airlines fly to, while the best of the lot found ways of getting you to your destination even when that meant putting you on one of their partners' planes.

5. Price options: Does it allow visitors to easily compare prices? Sure, you can compare prices by trying all the different combinations of flights yourself, but the best websites in our reviews did this for you.

Cathay Pacific
www.cathaypacific.com

Whether Virgin Atlantic copied their website from Cathay Pacific or the other way around isn't clear, the result is the same: the site designed for the UAE is pretty limited.

You can't book any hotels through this site and there are no sections for special promotions.

Despite the fact that Cathay has more travel options and better ways of searching the site than Virgin, it was often unusable. Frequently, the site was unable to match up flights and a few times trapped me in a never ending loop where it tried repeatedly to offer different travel dates, none of which worked either.

When flights were available, the site had a good feature which allowed us to either sort the flights by price or by schedule. I expected more though.

Anyone looking to book a holiday can visit www.cxholidays, a site shared by Cathay Pacific and DragonAir Holiday, although you won't find a link to it on the Cathay's UAE regional site.

Singapore Airlines
www.singaporeair.com

This is a solid, well organised site that doesn't give you any hassle. It doesn't give you a lot of extra either, but the site works so well there was little to complain about.

The site lets you select your departures and destinations from a dropdown menu, and even if you ask to be flown from Austin, Texas to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, the site gives you all the connecting flights you need.

The site also gives you a list of UAE-based fares, so that at a quick glance, you can see how much it will cost to fly from Dubai to Jakarta or from Abu Dhabi to Manila. However, the price promised often changes from the home page to the booking page as taxes and dates are changed.

You won't be booking any vacation directly through the site, as the Book a Hotel feature takes you to site operated by Octopus Travel.

This wasn't the best site to book a trip, but unlike some sites, we can say this one worked like it was supposed to.

KLM Royal Dutch AIrlines
www.klm.com

This was one of the friendliest and easiest websites to use, earning our second-highest marks.

The sight runs smoothly, offers colour coding to identify the least expensive days to fly, and gives users the ability to book a wide variety of hotels directly through the website.

The site has all the basics, i.e. e-services, frequent flyer programme and special offers, and more, including corporate travel information and even a carbon dioxide emission calculator.

The only reason this site ranked below Emirates.com was because it could be a little silly. The colour coding (light green for inexpensive, purple for "bring your wallet") was great, but you still have to look at a graph on the site to see what prices those colours actually corresponded to.

Also, the function for choosing your flights could be a little dense at times. When you enter your destination into the website, the site offers real-time suggestions of which airport you're looking for, even if the airline doesn't fly there. That made for more wasted time.

However, those were tiny details. Overall, the site is extremely well designed and functional.

FYI: KLM frequently code-shares with Air France, which has a website that is also easy to use and feature-rich.

Gulf Air
www.gulfair.com

Gulf Air, much like AirArabia, provides you with the basics for getting your flight arrangements, but this site doesn't try to do it all itself. For starters, while the site has a button for renting a hotel room and a car, those links lead unexpectedly to cheaphotels.com and hertz.com. While that may seem a little presumptuous — it recognises the obvious, that a website that specialised in hotels is going to have more options than anything that Gulf Air could offer.

The site focuses on getting you a flight, and while what you see on the screen can be a little convoluted, the site doesn't make you struggle through the process. If you select a travel date that the airline doesn't fly on, it will suggest a date when it does. The site also works with partners, so if you want a connecting flight to your final destination on another carrier, you can book it directly through the site.

While the site does provide the basic, it doesn't always work like you expect it. Ask to see the ticket price in another currency, and you get directed to a currency converter.

Also, while the site does have a list of special offers, beware that the taxes are not included in the listed fares. For example, while that ticket from Abu Dhabi to Mumbai may be listed at starting from Dh1,000, finally the price will be much higher at about Dh1,900.

British Airways
www.ba.com

While not the top on our list, British Airways comes through with a lot of strong features that make planning a trip easy.

The site is basic in terms of design, but it comes with a lot of functionality. You can take advantage of BA's partnership with other airlines to book trips to places the airlines doesn't fly to directly, and the website lets you know the lowest fare on any given days for the flight you are looking for. The site is also loaded with basic information on the company, breaking news and descriptions of the cabins.

You can also book hotels and car rentals through the site, but the number of options in any given city outside of the UK varies. For example, the site suggests nine hotels in Rome but only three in San Francisco.

Probably the most confusing part of the site is the Special Offers and the Destinations section. While this would seem like a good place to list special promotions or weekend getaways, the only thing you will see is some travel tips, such as "Romantic breaks in Grenada".

You clicking on the "Book now" or "Get Flights" icon will only take you back to the website's basic flight booking feature.

While it's a great way to promote where BA flies too, there are no special packages. Even if you book a flight through the special promotions section, you will still have to book your hotel separately.

Virgin Atlantic
www.virgin-atlantic

This site was a bit of a disappointment, especially considering the options Virgin offers on other regional sites.

When you first enter the site, it automatically starts off on the US regional site, which is packed with great features, including several options to book complete travel packages.

When we finally found our way to the UAE site, most of that functionality was gone. There were no special offers and no options to book hotels. There wasn't even a link to the VirginHolidays.com site.

So given no option other than to book a flight, we moved ahead.

From dropdown menus, travellers from Dubai can choose from 35 destinations spread across the world. If you have a direct flight, the website will show you a variety of dates and the costs to fly on that date. This option wasn't presented when there was a connecting flight, however. Booking the flight was straight forward and easy.

The site certainly works as advertised, but travellers looking to book a complete vacation will have to try another site.

Air Arabia
www.airarabia.com

Air Arabia's website resembles its airline: it will get you where you want to go, although you need to be a little flexible. This is a website of a budget airline and it shows, but while travellers shouldn't expect a whole lot of extras from this website, there were more options than expected.

The site looks simple to use, but looks can be a little deceiving, although the site is never difficult to use. You start by choosing your departure, which in the UAE means Sharjah, where you want to fly to, and your dates of travel.

However, AirArabia doesn't offer daily service to most destinations, so you are likely to receive a link which can show you the airline's schedule for any given month. Once you know the dates you can travel on, you can enter those into the systems.

From here, you can choose the flight. You can also book a hotel in any of the destinations AirArabia flies to, and in a few the airline doesn't, although choice are limited in some locations. Car rentals, visa services and travels insurance are also offered.

There is a special offers section on the site, although the site only offers a general list of prices for a two-night stay plus airfare in selected cities. None of these offers can be booked online. You have to call.

Etihad Airways
www.etihadairways.com

Etihad provides travellers with all they will need on airlines tickets online, but if you're looking to purchase a holiday package, you're going to have to pick up a phone.

If you're looking to book a trip on one of Etihad's routes, the site has everything you need. Even if you're not travelling from Abu Dhabi, Etihad's system will figure out how to get you between any of the places listed in its drop down menu.

The website also gives you the option of seeing the price of your tickets if you adjust your travel dates.

If you're looking for a romantic getaway or a short sight seeing trip, you can visit EtihadHolidays.com. The site has a wide variety of travel packages all over the world, but unfortunately, EithadHolidays doesn't work with the airlines main travel website.

Anyone looking to book a package or arrange a hotel will have to call Etihad's travel centre or visit one of its offices.

For those just looking for airlines tickets, the site has everything you'll need from online check-in, access to your frequent flyers accounts, and recent news about the airline.

Emirates Airlines
www.emirates.com

Easily one of the best airline websites out there, emirates.com provided you with almost everything you need to book a trip, let alone your flight. The ultimate test of any travel website is being able to plug in where you want to fly to, where you're flying from, and when you're going to travel and then get back a well-organised set of options. With only a few exceptions, Emirates delivered with flying colours and they even make it easy.

Don't know the code of the airports you're flying between? Just type the name of cities and Emirates will suggest the names of the airports in that area as you're typing. If Emirates doesn't have direct or connection flights to where you want to go, the website will try to find a flight on one of the airlines Emirates partners with. You can leave Dubai on an Emirates flight but arrive in Chicago on another carrier, but the entire trip can be bought as one package. You can also book hotel accommodations and rent a vehicle through the site.

Want to know if changing the dates of your trip will change the price of your ticket? Emirates lets you know what the ticket price is for days before and after the date you choose.

If you're a road warrior, you can download a number of widgets and mobile phones that allow you to search the airlines flight schedule. The widgets download an updated schedule periodically, so you don't even need to go online to plan your trip.

Air India
www.airindia.com

If you go to AirIndia.com knowing what you are looking for, you may not have any problems. If you're just on the site to see your travel options, be prepared to spend a long time trying to figure this site out.

This site can provide the basic facts, but don't expect it to go the extra mile. When I queried this site about travelling from Dubai to Goa, the site simply responded by saying that the airline didn't fly between those two cities. It doesn't fly directly, but no other options were provided despite the fact that your can fly from Dubai and Goa via Chennai on Air-India.

However, even if you manage to find the route you want, discovering how much it costs takes more work. Fares (including taxes) between two destinations are displayed on a separate area of the site, so if you know where you're going you can probably figure it out. Air-India couldn't. In fact, we received the worst thing imaginable when trying to book online: a phone number for a call centre.

I was also unhappy that, unlike other websites on this list, Air India would not allow me to book a flight leaving the next day. On January 13, the earliest flight I could book through the website was for January 21.

Overall, this site is fairly unfriendly and requires quite a lot of input and work from users.

More airlines

We weren't able to include all the airlines in our review. You can also check out the following carriers which have flights to and from the UAE.

To Europe:

• Lufthansa www.lufthansa.com
• Austrian Airlines www.aua.com
• Turkish Airlines www.thy.com
• Air France www.airfrance.com
• Aeroflot-Russian Airlines www.aeroflot.ru
•Swiss Airlines www.swiss.com

To Africa:

• Ethiopian Airlines www.ethiopianairlines.com
• Kenya Airways www.kenya-airways.com
• South African Airways www.flysaa.com

To India:

• Jet Airways www.jetairways.com
• King Fisher www.flykingfisher.com

Elsewhere in the Middle East:

• Qatar Airways www.qatarairways.com
• Jazeera Airways www.jazeeraairways.com
• EgyptAir www.egyptair.com

To Asia:

• Thai Airways www.thaiair.com
• Japan Airways (JAL) www.jal.com
• Malaysian Airlines www.malaysairlines.com
• Korean Air www.koreanair.com
• Asiana flyasiana.com

To the US:

• Delta www.delta.com
• Air Canada www.aircanada.com
• United www.united.com