Wataniya Airlways Site Launches
Name: Wataniya Airways
Business Type: Travel
Launch Date: December, 2008
* Date we first noted site online. Could be different
Brief: Wataniya Airlines is the second private airlines going into business next February, and they are the first premium service private airlines, as opposed to the low cost Al-Jazeera Airways. Wataniya Airways have 2 planes so far parked at Toulouse, France, and have 2 more coming later. The two airplanes will be starting their back and forth journeys between their country of origin, Kuwait, and the destinations Dubai, Bahrain, and Beirut on the 8th of Feb, 09. Travelers can already book their ticket flights online.
via SOME contrast
Review:
While Wataniya Airways site has all basic features for travelers to book their tickets, it is still behind I say compared to Jazeera Airways and others. The site design is rather pretty simple and looks like a ready made template. Search box date selection could be improved. Rather than having drop down menu for each entry (e.g., day, month, year), the approach of Jazeera Airways showing dates in human readable format is more appealing. Site response time is also occasionally slow
Booking: Once you perform a flight search, a new full screen window opens up with a complete different URL, but within the same theme, to complete the booking process. This is the engine and service that is powering their online booking system, something that Al-Jazeera is also doing. The different however is that Al-Jazeera does it so transparently. No domain change, nor a new window for it. The Wataniya Airways’ new window is so inconvenient, and makes it difficult for the normal user to browse back and forth. It also forbids him from doing multiple flight searches, which he may want to do for comparison purposes. Any new search loads in the same previously opened window. Also, the redirection to a complete different domain (cat.sabresonicweb.com), makes the end user confused. A simple subdomain mapping would be sufficient to overcome this problem, and give much more confidence and credibility to the user.
Another thing is Wataniya site still does not seem to offer seat selection, nor even a preference. At least, I was not able to spot it. Jazeera on the other hand had it since it’s early launch days. Made a pretty positive impression as well.
Pricing: That’s where it all ends isn’t it? So I tried to go through flight search from Kuwait to Dubai from 9th – 14th Feb, 09 for Wataniya Airways, Jazeera, and Kuwait Airways. A first note is, for some reason Wataniya site returns the ticket price in the currency of destination country, e.g AED, rather than the origin. As a Kuwaiti company, it should be either in KD by default, takes the currency of origin, or at least have in USD as a global currency. Not for any reason would I want to know the price in AED when I am traveling from Kuwait, and the least is I should have the option to change to my preferred currency. At the time of writing, there just isn’t!
Now as for prices, keeping in mind Jazeera is a low-cost service, these are the price ranges:
Wataniya Airways: 50 KD – 129 KD (42 classes)
Jazeera Airways: 10 KD – 70 KD (2 classes)
Kuwait Airways: 105 KD – 230 KD (3 classes)
So Jazeera highest exceeds Wataniya lowest fare, and notice how Kuwait Airways, a struggling service, has it’s lowest class fare close to Wataniya highest, and how their highest First class rate is above by 100 KD. While Wataniya uses Airbus A320, and Kuwait Airways uses variety of models, it remains known to many how consumed and old the airplanes Kuwait Airways operates, especially after last time new airplane purchase efforts were turned down. That, in addition to the frequent Wataniya 2 per day flight to Dubai should put Kuwait Airways almost obsolete for such destinations I believe, except when all other airlines are fully booked. Despite the known fact of the competition, we did not see any corrective measures on the Kuwait Airways side as well. Another thing is, Wataniya Airways gives travelers their own Royal Aviation Terminal, and this includes all traveler classes.
Future Destinations:
- Cairy, Egypt
- Amman, Jordan
- Qatar
- Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
- Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- Damascus, Syria
Summary: Competition is always good, and Wataniya is opening more seats to the hot short destinations, at a promising better service quality. The aviation terminal is, if as good as it seems, a marvelous idea. Their site still seems to need some work in terms of design, performance, and booking features.
In general, I expect Jazeera to remain the target for most frequent travelers for it’s competitive prices. Luxury and late flight seekers will be the Wataniya ones. I still believe with the different in service type we will see both airways trying to eat up each other’s share though. Kuwait Airways… So far it’s still in it’s long sleep, and I don’t expect it to wake up anytime soon.
More References:
Info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wataniya_Airways
Jobs: http://www.bayt.com/job/company?xid=807752
Popularity: 35% [?]
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(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Mark said,
December 25, 2008 @ 8:30 pm
Just a correction, Wataniya Airways has only two classes, Premium Economy and First. the “flexible” is the same class, but you can cancel the ticket or change dates etc..
Also a first class ticket to Beirut costs KD270 and a first class ticket to Dubai costs KD180 and these are the standard rates not flexible.
Q8Ba7th said,
December 25, 2008 @ 11:58 pm
Mark: Thanks for the correction on the number of classes Mark. Your point is valid.
About price however, this is the price I got. I checked again now, got the price in KD Kuwait-Dubai 100 KD First Flexible, 80 KD First only. They seemed to have changed just now but they are not 180 KD. Can you clarify please?
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February 24, 2011 @ 1:38 pm
[...] Wataniya Airlways Site Launches 25 Dec 2008. The different however is that Al-Jazeera does it so transparently. No domain change, nor a new window for it. The Wataniya Airways' new Wataniya Airlways Site Launches [...]