When Airlines First Went Online: The Top 15 Airline Websites Circa 1999

The airlines' first forays into the World Wide Web are relics of awesomeness. Today, we celebrate how far airline websites have come in the past 15 years...

Top 15 Airlines Websites of the Late 90s

1. RYANAIR  | June 2000

The question has been posed, can you really go wrong with animated flames? As Ryanair clearly demonstrates, you can't.

2. LUFTHANSA | November 1996

Lufthansa can lay claim to having the earliest airline website (in our collection, anyhow). Check out this 1996 beauty!

If, like me, you forgave the palm tree collage because they were early adopters (after all, it was 1996), you'll be disheartened to know the collage stuck around for the 1998 redesign. Just smaller and grayed out.

3. ALLEGIANT AIR  | January 2000

Allegiant Air shied away from collages (or any sort of graphic, really) and went minimalist for their foray into the World Wide Web in 2000.

4. AMERICAN AIRLINES | April 1998

5. FRONTIER AIRLINES  | December 1996

A couple classics to note: (1) Recommended broswers; Netscape 3.0 and Internet Explorer (2) "Under Construction" stripes

6. HAWAIIAN AIRLINES  | December 1996

One of the oldest airline websites we found, Hawaiian airlines did a pretty nice job for 1996, don't you think?

7. VIRGIN ATLANTIC  | August 1997

8. SOUTHWEST AIRLINES  | December 1997

And of course, this gem at the bottom of the home page explaining Why Southwest Doesn't Accept E-mails.

9. ICELANDAIR  | June 1997

Wondering what's under the "FUN" tab? The suspense was killing me too! Games, quizzes, a Runegame... oh me oh my!

10. AIRTRAN | December 1998

11. ALITALIA  | June 1997

12. DELTA AIRLINES  | October 2000

13. BRITISH AIRWAYS  | January 1999

14. UNITED AIRLINES  | April 2000

15. WESTJET  | December 1996

Which is Your Favorite?

My favorite? Bringing up nostalgic memories of my high school years, RyanAir's flashing menu bars and animated flame stole my heart. Although, Southwest's explanation of why they don't communicate via email was pretty classic too... what about you? Want to share, repurpose, reuse, or translate our content? Get information here about how to do that; we're under a creative commons license.

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