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America’s 10 worst airport websites: No.5 – Billings Logan International Airport

Billings Logan International Airport is the busiest airport in the US state of Montana. It also serves neighbouring states and, in my opinion, it has a very cool name.

Sadly, Billings Logan International Airport’s website is not as cool and there are plenty of reasons for that, as I found out while I was doing research for the review of the airport I wrote for CanDoCanGo.

First of all, the airport does not have a proper website of its own. Instead, its site is just a sub-section of the official website of the City of Billings.
See the airport “website” home page here

With many links from the airport’s sub-section navigating to the “main” site of the City of Billings, visitors to their website get headaches trying to find useful airport info and ending up on irrelevant pages such as this instead:
http://mt-billings.civicplus.com/index.aspx?nid=113 (Sorry, Mr Mayor!)

But that’s just the beginning. Many minor nuisances such as the ugly and uninformative URLs and the ridiculously huge sitemap (a result of the airport site being a sub-site) are present on Billings Logan International Airport’s web pages.

But even that’s not what earned it a spot among America’s 10 worst airport websites.

Trying to find any web page with information on the accessibility facilities and services for travellers with special needs that someone should expect from Billings Logan International Airport seems to be a feat in its own right.

And yet there is an easy-to-find “accessibility” button beneath every page across the whole website.

“What the heck are you ranting about then, Theodore?” I hear some of you asking.

Well, friends, check their “accessibility” web page which is so easy to find.

You see now that the joke is on us, folks; their accessibility web page is about the website’s accessibility and not the airport’s! How uncool is that? I think it’s so uncool it becomes funny.

But wait! The REAL joke begins now.

There is a “Traveler Information – Special Needs” to be found buried deep in the multitudes of irrelevant pages, but when or if someone manages to stay and browse that long they will find only a meaningless copy-pasted text there.

As I wrote in my general article on Billings Logan International Airport, it seems to me that someone just copy-pasted information from TSA’s (Transportation Security Administration) website without bothering to read what they were copying, resulting in a bafflingly meaningless (or frustrating or hilarious) web page.

Check their “Traveler Information – Special Needs” page for yourselves here and tell me, does it make any sense at all?!

Below is a screenshot showing the page which is devoid of meaning, plus the ever-present “accessibility” link (which refers to the accessibility of the website!)

Screenshot of Billings Logan's website, highlighting irrelevant copied text and pointless accessibility link

Well, if after all that time and frustration some persistent, heroic visitors haven’t abandoned all hope of finding a single bit of useful information on the accessibility facilities and services for travellers with special needs available at Billings Logan International Airport, they can look even further, as I did myself for my research.

I had to spend more than an hour and use specialised search engine tools, but eventually I found the only relevant reference to the airport’s accessibility facilities and services…. In a subsection of an airport FAQ at the general Billings website. Does it make sense to you? Me neither!

So you CAN find some very limited accessibility information on the airport, buried deep in an FAQ on the general City of Billings site.

Phew, I think it took me significantly longer to go through this airport’s site than any other US airport website, and that says a lot!

So, without any shred of bias on my part, below are the reasons I have included Billings Logan International Airport’s website in America’s 10 worst airport websites:

  • No dedicated website, just a sub-page on the official website of the City of Billings.
  • Easy to get lost or confused while browsing the website as it includes a lot of irrelevant information to most visitors, be it residents of Billings or airport passengers.
  • Completely useless and nonsensical “Traveler Information – Special Needs” page is copy-pasted from TSA’s website (it makes sense in the context there but not in the airport’s web pages!)
  • Finding their “Traveler Information – Special Needs” takes time, while the much more irrelevant “accessibility” web page can be accessed from EVERY SINGLE web page across the site.
  • Misplaced airport accessibility information that is notoriously difficult to find (in a FAQ within the general city of Billings website) and only covers the bare minimum.

This is No.5 in our America’s 10 worst airport websites series