The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | A website UgandaAirlines.com with a similar domain name with the official website for the revived national carrier Uganda airlines is confusing people intending to book flights.
The national carrier runs ugandaairlines.com. However, UgandaAirlines.com, which advertises hotels, tours, and car sales in Uganda, uses colors and pictures of the national carrier.
When one puts Uganda airlines in the search engine, UgandaAirlines.com comes on top. This has confused several people who don’t understand what the website is about.
Sharon Kiggundu, a marketeer, wrote on Facebook that she was confused about, which website to visit to book a flight. Albert Mucunguzi, an IT expert, implored Uganda Communications Commission on Twitter, that that website must be blocked because it was confusing travelers.
The website lists Eagle House, Tunnel Road Entebbe Airport, Uganda as the company’s address. It has no phone numbers. On Twitter, the official account of Uganda Airlines told confused Ugandans that “the right steps were taken [to report the website] and await action.”
Also, on twitter, a fake account named @Uganda_Airlines, almost similar to the national carrier’s official account @UG_Airlines has left people confused on which is which. The fake one has The Fly Crane as its slogan on twitter while the genuine one has “Official Twitter handle for the National Carrier, Uganda National Airline Company Ltd”.
The national carrier announced on Wednesday last week that it had commenced bookings for the maiden flight slated for Wednesday August 28, 2019 on Tuesday at 11:00 am. It will take an inaugural flight to Nairobi made up of selected government officials.
Once one has found the official website of the national carrier, the booking moves smoothly without a glitch – at least this reporter didn’t find a problem. However, some people would love if the company listed the entire cost of the journey – like some airlines do – without listing price minus taxes. The taxes applied are seen when one continues to the payment options.
The payments are handled by Direct Pay Online (DPO), a company collecting payments on behalf of the airline. The payee has been provided with various options, including paying in any currency they want. Also, mobile money platforms, including M-Pesa for Kenya, Airtel money, MTN mobile money, Vodafone, and Tigo-pesa for Tanzania are available.
Card payments for Visa, Mastercard are also enabled.
However, the airline’s flights are not yet reflected on key websites that aid flyers on booking their flights. Key booking sites like Expedia.com, nusatrip.com, and TripAdvisor don’t list Uganda Airlines as an option when one searches for destinations where the airline is to start flying to this week.
These sites list options of the airlines that have been around like Kenya Airways, RwandaAir, South African Airways and Ethiopian Airways among others. This could cost Uganda Airlines because many travelers don’t necessarily visit the airline website but book from third party sites.
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I myself also noticed when I tried to apply for a job with Uganda Airlines.
I did a google search for; Jobs with Uganda Airlines. And the website UgandaAirlines.com kept coming up. No matter what I did searching on google, It would not show the official website UgandAirlines.com
But I want to ask a question? when the IT person at Uganda Airlines was registering the official website of the company, where they drunk? Did they miss the letter “A” and spelled Uganda as Ugand?
Who in their right minds would register an official company domain name with a misspelled letter of their official business name?
What did Uganda Airlines expect? That people would be bad spellers like them and misspell the word Uganda as Ugand?
It would be the same as if the news company called “The Independent” decided to register your official website name as “independen.co.ug” and miss the letter D. Then there exists another website which is properly spelt as “independent.co.ug” where do you think the readers would go to when they type in the internet browser the word independent? Certainly they will not go to ‘independen’.
This is blunder of mighty proportions. I know for sure that the IT guy at Uganda Airlines was drunk when they misspelled to registration to their own website.
HAHAHAHAHAH.
haha…thanks man. great observation. just that the author of the independent article also couldn’t tell the difference between the fake and the right website. Had to read your comment to get it. Thans (k missed intentionally)
Unfortunately, people cannot even book tickets on Uganda Airlines official site. When asked to enter the date, it is impossible. It has some December 1969 date already filled in that cannot be undone.
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