Oman Air - fly me!
We flew to Aqaba from Gatwick where we were pleased to see Oman Air advertising on the departures screen. On our return, a hoarding facing us on the arrival ramp declared 'Muscat'. It's been very unusual to see advertising for Oman holidays, so I was taken by surprise. I did wonder what the backing photo was supposed to show, but, well, views of white villas surrounded by green trees looks nice enough.
In terms of press relations and media announcements, it seems that Oman Air has been very active over the last twelve months compared with other Omani companies. So it was with interest that I went to the Khaleej Times article this morning to read about the rebranding of the airline with its new logo.
I would have liked to have gone to a newly relaunched website for Oman Air to see the new logo and read about the company's operations, but there was no link provided in the article.
Instead, I guessed, and typed in www.omanair.com in the address bar. But what happened? It wasn't as if I got a Page Not Found message. No, the browser redirected me to a travel safety advisory notice at Smart Traveller Australia - a government service which provides information to its citizens about the dangers, or otherwise, of global destinations.
No matter how I clicked on links within the site, the address bar remained committed to www.omanair.com, even when I clicked through to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office advice section.
A Google search did not bring up a website for Oman Air. I'm sure there must be a website somewhere, but I guess the copy on the site has not been so well written as to bring it to Google's attention.
I also looked up Smart Traveller Australia while I was about it. Here is the page to which you will be directed if you guess, like I did, www.omanair.com. I quote: "We advise you to exercise a high degree of caution in Oman because of the high threat of terrorist attack."
That's not exactly geared to encouraging tourism I would have thought. Ironic, particularly as another Australian website regularly publishes travel features about Oman.
Just to be sure, I tested this in two different Internet browsers, in case it was a browser mistake, but got exactly the same results. Has someone been hacking?
As an aside, I was extremely irritated by an advert in Flash on the Khaleej Times page, which had no Close option, and which obscured the text of the article I wanted to read. Khaleej Times please note - offering your readers the opportunity to turn off unwanted Flash adverts is a sign of a professional organisation.
Comments
muscati wrote:
Blue_Chi wrote:
No hacking or hijacking has taken place. Dot com domain names are available for purchase by any individual and somebody simply bought the domain and redirected it to Australia's Smart Travel website.
The domain remained on the page because of a technique call "Framing". You simply use your page as a frame of whatever content you put inside, so the URL does not change.
You can do a WHOIS search to check who owns this domain, the database says its someone called Bahi Vimal. It could the name of the person or maybe the name of the person working at the company that registered the domain name for the person.
http://whois.domaintools.co...
The funny thing is that Omantel decided to block omanair.com because Omanis should not read such things about their country. How stupid.
newsbriefs wrote:
1. It was a very big business mistake to have enabled the domain name http://www.omanair.com to be bought by somebody else. The best policy is to buy up every conceivable related domain name.
2. This sort of framing may not technically be described as hacking/cracking, but it is an inappropriate use of internet resources. Somebody quite deliberately redirected that domain name. Somebody, presumably, who has a grudge against Oman or Oman Air. Does it never make you wonder why that person had a grudge and was in a position to wreak a form of revenge?
3. Presumably the reason http://www.omanair.com was blocked was because the authorities had recognised there had been a domain redirection. As if nobody else in the world might not want to find out about Oman Air too, they block the site in Oman!
4. It really puzzles me that people should worry so much about the logo and definitions of hacking and not the impression left on people who go to http://www.omanair.com and find something else entirely.
5. The whole episode smacks of charlatanry and once again, makes Omani institutions look unprofessional.
6. Google works wonders. I've just done another search on Oman Air, and surprise, surprise, http://www.omanair.aero comes top of the list.
Quite stupidly, Oman Air's website is http://www.omanair.aero. When you search for Oman Air on Google, third on the search results is Oman Air's FAQ!
To see the new logo come to my blog, or just search for Oman Air new logo and you'll get a bunch of blogs which all post about their dislike for the new corporate identity.