Forum: SIA needs to fix its website, and fast

I am a frequent flier with Singapore Airlines (SIA). While its in-flight service is stellar, the sorry state of its barely functioning website needs to be called out.

This is not a new problem. Back in 2011, Singapore Airlines rolled out a new website so plagued with issues that CEO Goh Choon Phong had to issue a public apology, and said the airline had “committed full resources to resolving the website problems”.

Now, almost 15 years later, SIA’s “full resources” seem woefully inadequate. Rather, the issues have worsened.

Among the many issues long-suffering users face include being inexplicably logged out of the website when one tries to pay for flight bookings, inability to process payment for add-on services such as seat selections, and not being able to log into the website altogether. And if one thinks one could at least report these problems, one would be mistaken.

The website’s feedback form itself has never once worked whenever I tried using it in the past.

It is remarkable that an airline would leave unfixed the very glitches that block customers from completing payment.

But perhaps the airline has grown used to passengers like me and many others navigating by workarounds. We call the hotline. We queue to speak to staff. We patch over SIA’s digital shortcomings with our time and patience.

That SIA, the national airline of a nation branding itself a Smart Nation, cannot deliver a reliable website is a jarring blind spot.

It is time for SIA to stop tinkering with a relic, and either overhaul it properly or build anew.

Because no matter how fine the champagne is in the sky, the digital experience on the ground has become a long-running national embarrassment.

Yeo Tze Han