If Singapore was run by Hugo Chavez, Scoot’s recent launch of the Taipei promo fares would have resulted in Chavez-like public rants of “foreign conspiracy”.
 
What?
 
Take a look:
 
Is Singapore Airlines group saying, “dear Singapore, if you’re bored with Singaporean chicks, grab our cheap fares to Taipei and get laid or get your stomach’s full”. (Eh, hang on, where does that leave the “Singapore Girl”? I wonder…)
 
So, those willing to get hot chicks for SGD88 (or those who’d rather be comfortable when confronted with the chicks by paying SGD248) jumped at the Scoot website only to be disappointed by Scoot’s IT impotence…
 
Impotence? Excuse me? Yes!
 
I mean, just look at this:
Sorry, we’re having a promo but
we are out of bandwidth?
Let’s not forget the basic rules of an airline web promo fare launch:
  • ONE: GET THE BANDWIDTH
  • TWO: GET THE BOOKING SERVER PROCESSING POWER
  • THREE: GET THE PAYMENT ENGINE BANDWIDTH AND PROCESSING POWER!
  • FOUR: WHEN IN DOUBT, OBTAIN EXPERT’S OPINION
But, before we conclude where the problem is, let’s find out where the problem is…
  • Problem on rule One? Errr, No. Scoot’s website was functioning.
  • Problem on rule Three? Errr, we never got to that stage, but could be.
  • Problem on rule Four? Perhaps… but surely Scoot could have asked for an opinion by the IT department at SQ?
  • Problem on rule Two? The booking engine is powered by Navitaire, who provide e-booking and ticketless processing power for numerous airlines around the world and are used to these promo-bandwidth-floods.
 
So what gives?
Navitaire is the expert in handling these web promotions, they are also the provider of booking server processing etc etc. Why was Scoot caught off guard?
 
Perhaps Scoot was reluctant in taking in the advise from Navitaire on the web promotion because the its most successful handling of a massive web promo campaign for its next door rival, Air Asia, who, according to internal sources, handled 340,000 booking queries, processing, and successful payments per second (or was it 3.4 million… I forgot) in 2009 and 2010.
 
Maybe there’s a little Chavez somewhere in Scoot saying, “this is an American and Malaysian conspiracy against Singaporeans getting hot chicks!” It may sound silly, but is it sillier than Scoot simply underestimating the demand and not tell Navitaire about it? (Well, I admit, probably some Scoot beancounter didn’t want to pay extra for the promo peak handling capacity from Navitaire… but who knows…)


Thank you to @CharlesRyanTeo for the pics!

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