Introduction

is Australia's and Singapore's new low fares airline for Australia and the Asia-Pacific. Their aim is to provide consistent low fares to Australian, New Zealand and Asian leisure travellers.

They started flying within Australia on 25 May 2004 and within Asia just over six months later, offering customers a simple and fresh travel experience. Their bold and distinctive brand is indicative of the fresh and vibrant approach toward low cost travel in the region.

Jetstar's Australian operation is wholly owned by Qantas but is managed separately and operates independently. Their Australian headquarters are in Melbourne and intra-Asian operation is based in Singapore. Jetstar operates around 1,000 weekly flights to 21 destinations throughout Australia and to New Zealand.

Their objective is to keep costs at minimum so that customers can travel more often. At a low-cost, Jetstar provide brand-new fleet, great destinations and friendly crew to create a comfortable and enjoyable travel experience.

On 18 August 2008, in Singapore, Jetstar Asia has been awarded the 2008 SkyTrax Best Low-Cost Airline Award in 2 categories; Best Low-Cost Airline in Asia and Best Low Cost Airline in South East Asia.

Purpose

The purpose of the website is to create convenience to customers who prefer to purchase air tickets online rather then traveling down to the head office or going through travel agencies.

The website not only provide online booking for air tickets but also allow customers to book hotels online from the varieties of choices given in the website as well as renting a car over a number of countries.

From the website, customers can easily view the latest promotional packages as well as the cheapest hotel deals available. They also provide their monthly performance in the homepage to increase customers' confidence level.

Business Model

The business model that Jetstar focuses on is Business-to-Consumer (B2C) but the strategies of Business-to-Business (B2B) model is involved when dealing with third party companies for additional services which they provide on their website base on commission.

Business-to-Consumer (B2C)

Jetstar believed in fostering a customer-oriented culture. Thus they are committed in delivering their promise of keeping all day, every day, low fares. Therefore, interested customers only need to purchase air tickets online which save the hassle of going through travel agencies/call center and paying more than the offered price.

Features

Online Booking

Booking air tickets online are fast and simple. Customers only need to have a destination in mind the date of departure and date of return and fill up the required information. Their Online Booking Engine allows customers to search for flights and fares up to 6 months in advance.





The system will search the database and retrieve the best offer for the consumer. Customers will have to select their preferred timing of flight. Jetstar also allows consumer to see the airfares and schedule available 1 day before and after their planned date. For every page, there will be a booking summary which shows consumer their selection as well as the total cost.





After selecting the time slot, customers will be required to fill in their details.











At the same page, customers are allowed to select their choice of seats and to make payment.

Payment Scheme

The payment method available is international credit cards (Visa or Mastercard).

In Singapore they offer other types of payment methods which is known as Offline Payments. People may make payments at SingPost outlets and 7-11 outlets using Cash, Cashcard and NETS (Network for Electronic Transfers). For NETS and Cashcard payment, customers can choose to make payment at S.A.M (Self-Service Automated Machine) kiosks in order to avoid queues.

Web Check-In

Jetstar operate as a virtual store, thus they provide Web Check-In for customers who do not wish to travel to the airport 2 hours before departure time. Customers save the hassle of joining long queues in the airport.

For first time customers who wants to try out Web Check-In, they can look at Web Check-In Demo to provide a clearer picture on how to do it.

Online Security

Jetstar provide a secure server to protect the confidential information of the customers. This information is encrypted using the Secure Socket Layer Protocol (SSL), which was developed so that only the intended recipient should be able to decipher messages addressed to them. This will significantly improve security of data provided by or for members.




Jetstar took an extra step of protection by recording customer's IP address under the Payment's page.

Key Characteristic

The main objective of the Jetstar website is to provide customers a one-stop station to complete their holiday plan. Their main objective is to make it hassle free for customers by providing them a choice to complete their itnerary in one go.

To provide more services rather than just focusing on cheap airfares alone, Jetstar provide other third party services such as best hotel deals, travel insurance, car rental and travel guides of many destinations around the world. This can be seen easily from the website's main page which shows at the middle and right side of the advertisements.

Jetstar Airways has other key characteristics, firstly they are ticket-less Airline which means no tickets will be issued to the customer after they have made their booking and customer can check-in with the emailed itinerary/faxed copy of the purchase order. By not issuing "paper" tickets, the associated savings are passed on to the customer. In such way, Jetstar make their air fares more affordable for their customer.

Lastly, there is a price difference via Internet and Call Centre when customers book their air ticket. That means when customer book an air ticket via online, they will be entitled to get a $10 discount than booking through call centre.

Design

The whole website design is simple and has a clean layout. It is user-friendly to customers as they will be able to get specific information by clicking the relevant links. The website provides links to third party services such as car rental, hotels, travel insurance and travel guides.

By designing the website without animation, the upload speed for each web page is faster and the users do not have to spend too much time booking online. Besides this, the website uses bright orange as its main colour which goes with their logo. This make it outstanding on the white background.

Strengths

• Not restricted to selling air tickets but also offer a wide range of travel services such as hotels, travel insurance and car rentals.

• Provide free travel guides for consumers to do a research on the destination they are interested.

• Provide printable flight schedule. Consumers can download flight schedules from the website in PDF format for referencing.

• Provides a login page for Jetstar members, travel agents and corporate.

• For Jetstar members, they are able to book air tickets without having to re-enter their particulars each time as their particulars will be saved in the database. Members are also eligible for discounts as well as other member's benefits. As for travel agents, they are able to find out more information in order to do business with Jetstar. For corporate members of companies and organizations, will be able to received a monthly report by email, detailing their bookings on the Corporate site during the preceding calendar month.

• The online booking system allows customers to have a look at the airfares one day before and after their planned date. This allows customers to make easy comparison as well as saving the trouble of going back to the main page to change the date of departure or return.

• To save customers’ time and effort, the website provides Web Check-In for online booking.

• In Singapore, there are additional payment methods (cash, NETS and cashcard at SingPost outlets and 7-11 outlets) for the customers to get easiness of payment.

• To get customer’s confidence on their services, the website shows the performance level of their operation activities on each calendar month.

Weakness

• Tiger Airways uses Verify by Visa and MasterCard® Secure Code™ to prevent unauthorized use of the credit cards through the use of a personal pin while Jetstar Airways do not provide this function.

• In website layout, user might difficult to find “Home” link easily as they use small font’s size and the location is also at the bottom of the page.

• There are only 2 languages accessible on website even though wide selections of many countries are provided. They should provide more languages availability in order to suit the customers from Europe and other Asian countries.

• Under Ask Jetstar, the fonts used are very small. Thus making it difficult for users to see or read clearly.
  

Analysis

In today business competition era, every business organization can’t rely on their product quality and services dedicated for customers. They need to deliver their product information and latest promotions to customers on a fast and accurate basis. Information technology is growing and playing a major role in today’s communication world. Companies can make use of e-commerce to promote their services and products so as to increase sales as well as attracting more customers around the world.

Jetstar attempts to attract consumers by providing great deals in their homepage as well as their monthly performance data. They used the computerized Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), to record on-time performance data, a much more accurate and reliable process than the manual systems used by other airlines. From the start of this year till August 2008, Jetstar manage to maintain at an average performance of 95%. This shows that customers are generally satisfied with their service. By showing evidence of their performance, Jetstar proved that they are able to deliver their promise at the same time helps to gain more customers’ trust.