South African Airways (SAA) is back online after its Web site was suspended over the weekend after the domain was not renewed.
The company, SA's national carrier, is still investigating the cause of the problem to ensure “this does not happen again”, says spokesperson Vimla Maistry.
SAA's site was down between 7pm on Saturday and about lunchtime on Sunday, she says. “SAA has been working around the clock to ensure minimal disruptions to our customers and we confirm that the site is now fully operational.”
Steven Ambrose, MD of World Wide Worx Strategy, says that, although the site is back up, the cost to the company is far more than the R11.5 million in daily sales lost because the site was down. He adds that the Web site is the main mechanism through which SAA sells tickets, and communicates with potential customers around the world.
Ambrose says the site went down because of an “internal business failure” as no one was responsible for paying the $7.50 to renew the domain. “For a site of that nature, it's completely and utterly unacceptable.”
He adds that the domain would have been inaccessible to anyone who sought information on flights, which would have damaged SAA's credibility.
While the site was put back online quickly, he points out that the potential for someone else to have acquired it was there.
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