oneworld partners British Airways and Japan Airlines have launched refreshed versions of their websites as technology continues to grow in importance in the travel trade.

The British Airways homepage has been comprehensively redesigned to make it easier to use and navigate, as well as making it more inviting and accessible to customers.

Andy Newman, British Airways’ ba.com manager, said: “First impressions count, which is why we’ve devoted so much time in making sure that our award-winning website is even better at engaging our customers, from the first click.

“Ease of use is a key principle we bring to all our digital channels, so we’ve developed a new easier way of navigating around ba.com, with a clearer Manage My Booking area and a better use of evocative destination images to help inspire customers and make the most of their trip.

The last time major design changes were made to ba.com was in 2005. Over the past year, ba.com has been rolling out a series of continued improvements.

This includes new ways of presenting flights, to show the ticket costs across multiple cabins with information on what service, baggage allowance and dining options customers can enjoy.

Design agency HUGE, worked closely with ba.com to work on the design prototype of the new homepage through to the final agreed design, which was then built by the airline’s in-house team.

The value calculator, introduced in June 2009, provides customers with the information to compare the value of British Airways flights with the cost of no-frills airlines, to judge for themselves the benefit of flying with British Airways.

Other technological investments by British Airways for its customers have been to provide mobiles apps and mobile boarding passes across all major mobile phone platforms, for iPhone, Blackberry, Android and Windows Phones.

Japan Airlines

Also today, Japan Airlines renewed its main homepage allowing customers to purchase tickets online.

The site attracts more than 350,000 viewers per day on average, ranging from first-time users to regular visitors such as JAL Mileage Bank (JMB) members.

In the latest update to the functionality and aesthetics of the website, three years since the last revamp, JAL incorporated feedback from many frequent users as well as findings from surveys to improve usability and clarity for as many customer profiles as possible.

In addition to creating an overall larger layout with bigger font size for easy-reading, a new site index has been added at the bottom of the page for better navigation around the website.

Customers can now also more easily stay updated with the latest JAL news and identify attractive promotions highlighted on a banner which customers can click to access the respective campaign microsites.