AerLingus.com - Taken Over by Americans?

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For some odd reason the Aer Lingus website is now defaulting to the display for US visitors. I've tried this from several different IP ranges and it always does the same thing. Haven't they heard of Geo IP??
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34 Comments

Maybe they're just trying to annoy you.

I get the Irish site on www.aerlingus.com.

Try it through a proxy and see what they serve you?

michele said:

I'm already behind a proxy here

Who is your ISP?

Cian said:

http://www.aerlingus.com/ gets me US cities, even http://www.aerlingus.ie redirects me to the same.

Ken McGuire said:

thats a good one... just going 7pm and its dishing out all the english ones, i'm behind a chorus IP based out of kilkenny.

Pete said:

I'm on NTL in work and at home - and both redirect me to the "americanised" version - really cheeses me off - especially when I hit aerlingus.ie!!!!

michele said:

I wonder how much this is costing them in sales. If an Italian were to end up on the US version of the site would they even bother to choose their country from the dropdown? Would they even be able to?

I still get Irish results.

Is anyone gonna take it upon themselves to let them know?

Actually has anyone tried to see what's coming back through a US/foreugn proxy? I wonder what the're serving up to others around the globe?

michele said:

Richard
I couldn't see anywhere to report website issues...

Michele

Contact Us page.

Gave them a call and spoke to a nice girl who probably thought I was a nutter.

Funily enough when I tried to explain that the site was serving US pages to Irish visitors she immediately told me that there was a box in the top RH corner for choosing the country.

She said she would take a note and pass it on to their tech people.

Lets wait and see how long it takes - should be very interesting to see their response time.

Oh yeah I gave her your URL so they can check the comments.

Pete said:

Try the following steps.

1. Goto www.aerlingus.com
2. Click "need help" link at the top of the page
3. Click help enquiry link
4. Pop up window will appear.
5. Since no options says "Website" or something relevant, select Other
6. You will get a generic form (I havent tested it, so no guarantees it works )

Pete said:

Oh and dont try and be cute clicking the first option in the dropdown, as they use javascript to redirect when you make a choice

adam said:

I didn't get any site, because I went to aerlingus.com instead of www.aerlingus.com. No A record for the domain itself. Stupid bastards.

michele said:

Adam - You'll get that with a lot of Eircom / Esat controlled domains. Supposedly some RFC or other ...

cgarvey said:

I've reported it twice over the last year (by phone the 2nd time). Whatever about GeoIP, you'd think aerlingus.ie would default to Country == Ireland!

It's nothing new, though, as it's been like that for me for well over a year. My ISP is eircom, and my static IP block are IE in RIPE.

.cg

adam said:

You shouldn't munge addresses on mailing lists either, it's NAUGHTY. Talk about living in the past like...

Elvin said:

On EsatBT here and getting UK departure cities with United Kingdom displayed in the Country dropdown.

http://www.aerlingus.com/cgi-bin/obel01im1/bookonline/index.jsp

http://aerlingus.ie re-directs to this also

I booked a flight last month and thought it odd having to select Ireland as country on an Irish airline's site.

michele said:

Adam

Oh give over. If I pasted full URLs they'd wrap and people would whine

Cathal - I only noticed when I started shopping for flights

adam said:

Michele ca-an't li-ink, Michele ca-an't li-ink!

Pete said:

Try the site with IE :)

michele said:

That is demented!

michele said:

Ah this is maddening. Even the links in their newsletter don't work properly in Firefox.

Kevin Cannon said:

Set you language settings in Firefox to en-ie as the priority and it works. I think IE automatically picks up the system language settings, while Firefox doesnt'.

michele said:

Kevin
That's just silly. If they coded the site properly this wouldn't happen. They could easily use a geoip lookup to work out where I am and redirect me to the correct version of the website.

Michele

Fly British Airways

michele said:

Martin

I might just do that :)

Michele

linda.e said:

up untill now i thought it was just my problem
i am living in germany and i can get front page germany but it always redirects me to the same and i could not book a flight for months either i flew with ryan air or got someone in ireland to book it
crazzzzy.......

michele said:

Linda

Considering how important online sales are for Aer Lingus it amazes me that they still haven't rectified it!

anon said:

I suspect they use your browser settings when deciding what homepage & language to display.

IE : tools / internet options / languages.
Firefox : tools / options/ advanced / edit languages.

michele said:

And so I am expected to tweak _my_ settings so that _they_ can sell to me?

Hmmmm

Interesting ....

Kevin Cannon said:

No, Firefox users just have to click on the drop-down menu is all.


Really, it's mildly annoying, but it only affects a fraction of their user base, but on the whole it's a minor inconvenience. They're unlikely to lose sales over it. It's akin to having a slightly stiff door on the entrance to a shop, nothing more.

anon said:

Michele, they're probably just assuming you have your language and locale set up to suit yourself already, so if you speak English and you're in Ireland you have en_ie, or if you're in Britain you have en_gb etc.

Ian said:

Find it infuriating too, how do you complain and will it make any difference.

michele said:

@Kevin - anything that put an obstacle in the way of a sale is a bad thing.

@Anon - It's a dangerous assumption

@Ian - No idea to be honest. I think a couple of people have tried to no avail already

Michele Neylon - cartoon picture

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