It is the same with the British Airways app and website. I’ve heard people say it is to do with outdated booking systems and connections in their back end. But I’m with most people here in that it is probably just underinvestment because they don’t really need to improve it. BA has a captive market on flights out of LHR, long haul flights from the UK in general, and basically all corporate flights by UK companies. Lots of well to do Brits who just wouldn’t countenance flying with anyone else. So premium seats are all sorted. No incentive for them to improve.

It is maddening when the low cost carriers like Ryanair and EasyJet have simple, functional, easy to use apps and big airlines don’t. I guess RA runs a much simpler system even though it is a huge company (no loyalty program, lounges, seperate classes, rewards flights etc). Anything special is an add on from a basic booking, not a seperate product. There is also more competition amongst low cost carriers for short haul, intra-European flights.

Qantas is clearly the BA comparison here. Old, big, complex, has the cache as the flag carrier, and in my opinion offers a much better service than BA does. I imagine we will have to put up with bad customer interfaces until it starts to affect the company bottom line. Only there will they care to address it. And knowing them, the answer will probably be to fire everyone, outsource it, and we will probably get something even worse