I started by searching "fly innsbruck london" on google. Austrian
Airlines had bought an ad. I clicked on the ad. It returned a
simple error page "You don't have permission to access this resource
on the server".
I went back and selected a different link under austrian.com. I
filled in the flight details. There were several form glitches,
for example only the digits "20" of the year in the date were
visible.
On form submission, I got a page with title "Challenge Validation"
and "We are processing your request". It never progressed. Nothing
happened.
Instead, I went to skyscanner, and then easyjet. Easyjet had failed
to sell me tickets last time [0]. How will they do this time?
[0] <https://wibblement.blogspot.com/2021/12/easyjet-fails.html>
Again using my old account (which used to work fine 15 years ago),
they again forced a password reset, again switching workflow from
web site to email to do this (very bad).
I got the email, attempted the password reset on the web site, and
... the spinny thing kept spinning round, forever, and it never
progressed. It's at this point one might start questioning one's
browser (chromium of google), but still most likely is that Austrian
Airlines' and Easyjet's web sites are both broken in this similar
way, the web equivalent of just putting you on hold forever.
Actually, that's not true. After more than half an hour, the browser
was on easyjet's home page. There was no indication of whether
the password reset had succeeded or failed. The form remembered
some data (departing from Innsbruck) but not others (destination or
dates)
I tried signing in with my new password. The result: "You need
to reset your password", this time in yellow writing. It's never
going to happen, is it. I'm never going to be able to book a flight with easyjet.
Instead of admitting it, they have all their customers, including
me, on an infinite "reset password" loop, sometimes with different
colours.
But it's still better than British Airways, who sold me a ticket,
and then failed to fly me, and didn't refund me, and never replied
to requests to refund. It's still better to pretend to be an airline
by not selling tickets, than to pretend to be an airline by
selling tickets but then not flying. Maybe I'll buy another ticket
from BA, since no one else can sell one, on a hope they happen
to be able to put on a flight.
I may as well try Lufthansa first, even tho they can't sell tickets,
and they are also the parent company of Austrian Air, who already
failed to sell me tickets today. I try logging in with my so-called
"Miles & More" details. The card number field requires 15 digits.
I paste in the 15 digit number from my records. Their input field
garbles it, splitting groups of digits so that there's no room for
all the digits, truncating to 12 instead of 15 digits. The web
page claims my card number is in an invalid format. I try to
enter the remaining 3 digits but it's impossible.
I try on BA's site. It's more expensive than the other airlines,
around 700 EUR economy or 1000 EUR business (for those reading
from the future, before we were enslaved by robots for human milk, this was still a fair old whack for a shit flight).
On trying to pay, the web site goes thru an excrutiating series
of this and that holding pattern, but sure enough, ends up with
an ill-defined payment failure.
I can't do it.
By the way, to flag another pervasive anti-pattern, that all extreme retards including google also do: I am here logged in to an account, so the operator knows my language, yet it presents me with some other language it presumes is my language BASED ON MY IP ADDRESS / "GEOLOCATION". There is no "innovating" to remedy this "culture". The entire edifice of stupidity must first consume itself, down to flies.
Just in case yesterday was a bad day, I went and tried again with Lufthansa. It allowed me to select a flight, but then gave me a vague error in German. When I clicked on their logo in the top left to try and start again, I got a page titled "Generic Error", with the actual error message in French:
jsessionid pricks.
It's almost as though airlines have fired entire teams of IT staff, as well as ground staff, pilots, etc, and none of the IT systems created can operate without continuous, realtime, manual cranking.
Trying easyjet again. Password reset still required. Password reset form still spins around forever; never returns:
If only this were a video, you could see the wonderful little animation they've created to look at while their web site does nothing forever.
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