Website costs BA £40 million

[Nottingham Nick]

An article in todays Mail on Sunday financial section details the woes of BA's Opodo website. It says that nine airlines including Air France, Aer Lingus and Lufthansa invested £200 million in the project.

It doesn't work and it looks like BA will have to write off £40 million.

Pix - I suggest a quick email to Sir Rod - I am sure you could knock them up something along the lines of Virginflyer, for about half of the £200 million Opodo cost :D

You would have to remember to embed some secret codes that would point the poor BA lot in the direction of VS;)

Nick

[Pete]

*ouch*

£200m? What could I do with £200m....

Buy a brand new 747-400 and still have £90m, change? Not sure which CO2 bracket for company vehicle tax it comes under though!

quote:Originally posted by Nottingham Nick
An article in todays Mail on Sunday financial section details the woes of BA's Opodo website. It says that nine airlines including Air France, Aer Lingus and Lufthansa invested £200 million in the project.

It doesn't work and it looks like BA will have to write off £40 million.

How does it not work? I just booked some flights on Opodo a few days ago - was cheaper than ebookers, travelocity and expedia.

[Decker]

Guessing doesn't work means not commercially viable.

£40,000,000? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha

Oooh, sorry, I mean poor BA. What a shame it didn't work out for them.

[RichardMannion]

Typical throw money at it approach! Not sure where they spent the £200m - its a good site, but not that good!

Expedia on the otherhand is a huge success, why we ever spun it off I'll never know. Household name helps!

Thanks,
Richard

[Nottingham Nick]

Here is a link to the story

http://www.thisismoney.com/20040328/nm76350.html

Nick

[Bazz]

quote:Originally posted by RichardMannion
Typical throw money at it approach! Not sure where they spent the £200m...

Perhaps they spent £80m on new multi-coloured ethnic 'Skins', which nobody liked!

[Decker]

ouch!:D

The £40m write off was probably spent on temp agencies to cover absence due to staff sickness!

Perhaps they hired a particularly expensive marketing agency to come up with the website's wonderful name?

After all, other companies spend horrendous amounts of money on such things (Abbey, for their ridiculous new 'starburst' look and BP, for their new-ish logo to name but two).

[xx(]