Jetstar enhances its online capabilities

Following its recent international expansion, Jetstar has invested in its online capabilities through jetstar.com to cater to new and increased demands.

The airline has worked with Akamai Technologies, Inc., a global service provider for accelerating content and business processes online, to improve its website’s ability to cater to local languages and deliver a better service for its customers in all its new markets. Akamai’s services will also ensure the uptime of Jetstar’s online reservation systems, support during the peak travel season, and improved communications with remote offices and travel agencies.

Jetstar’s general manager online channels Grant Swinbourne said: “We now have access to Akamai’s EdgePlatform and we can leverage their Content Targeting product allowing us much faster delivery of specific local content to customers across the entire Asia Pacific region.

“Essentially this allows us to change the language, look and feel of our site for specific markets or to match offers and content to the demographic needs of a region. For example, when a Japanese customer comes to Jetstar.com from Japan, they will see a range of offers and specials directly tailored to them,” Swinbourne said.

Jetstar is Australia’s leading low fares airline and last month expanded its operations to fly long haul international services, initially from Australia to the Asia Pacific.

According to Stuart Spiteri, director - Asia Pacific, Akamai, value based carriers like Jetstar are experiencing increased demands on their website as more travellers than ever make their bookings online.

“We know that value based carriers traditionally experience download time performance degradation during daily peak booking periods which makes them vulnerable to online customer dissatisfaction and abandonment,” said Spiteri. He added that by utilising Akamai’s global network of over 20,000 servers, Jetstar will now have the scalability on demand to support high levels of user traffic, helping to improve the user experience and protecting their services during unpredictable Internet conditions.

Akamai’s Content Targeting service identifies the user’s geographic location, connection speed, device type, and delivers customised content at the network edge for each visitor. The Jetstar website is automatically translated based on the customer’s location and internet browser language settings. Four languages are currently available including two versions of English and Japanese and Chinese.

“Content targeting also allows Jetstar to create a customised store front for users. Visitors to the site will be served content relevant to them when they first hit the website, rather than having to click through pages trying to find what they want,” Spiteri said.

Jetstar Group general manager commercial Bruce Buchanan said, “As Jetstar takes our brand global, no matter where our customers are in the world, they will now be able to book their flights online with the best speed and efficiency we can offer. Up to 80 percent of Jetstar’s booking intakes are predicted to continue to occur online. Akamai will also allow us to ‘spike proof’ our website to support high amounts of site traffic without the costly exercise of expanding infrastructure. We believe this new addition to our web-based infrastructure will improve overall website performance.”