The Airlines & Travel industry, while outperforming the 2005 global figures in some aspects of our review, did comparatively poorly in others.

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One of the key differences in the Ease of Use area between the industry's figures and those of all companies in 2005 was the low proportion of keyword search functions. We found that very few (57 percent) provided search functions, whereas 76 percent of all sites contained them. Site map provision was in line with averages, while the industry outperformed the average for FAQ sections by 20 percent.

Another notable feature of sites in this industry is the 12 percent who do not facilitate online inquiries. This is twice the global average. However the companies who do accept email queries do quite well in responsiveness –only 6 percent of our queries were not answered (compared to 19 percent of those sent to all companies in 2005); 62 percent were answered within a day (10 percent more than the global figure); and 73 percent of replies were helpful (9 percent more than the global proportion).

The industry as a whole fared comparatively poorly in Trust. 17 percent share data with third parties and 71 percent use this data for marketing without permission.