Enhancing the China Airlines Desktop Booking Experience
As a frequent traveler between Taiwan and international destinations who regularly flies with China Airlines, I noticed distinct friction points in their desktop booking process that sparked my curiosity as a product designer. In Taiwan's competitive aviation market, China Airlines maintains a significant 32% market share as the second-largest carrier, yet faces critical digital performance gaps. The desktop booking platform—representing 45% of total reservations—achieves only an 8% conversion rate, substantially below competitor EVA Air's 12% and industry benchmarks of 10-15%. This strategic initiative targets systematic optimisation of high-friction touchpoints to recover $24.5M in potential revenue by enhancing the booking experience for corporate and family segments.
Note: All metrics, financial projections, and conversion data presented in this case study are fictional and used solely for educational purposes to demonstrate data-driven decision-making in product design. This work does not represent China Airlines' actual performance figures or internal assessments.
Type
Passion Project
Services
UX Design
Year
2025
Role
UX Designer
Roles and Responsibilities
Analysing desktop booking data to identify critical conversion barriers across key user segments, with focus on corporate and family travellers
Creating detailed journey maps with validated pain points, highlighting authentication flows and session management as primary conversion barriers
Prioritising solutions based on strategic impact-to-effort analysis to maximise value within technical development constraints
Designing intervention components with clear implementation roadmaps, utilising AI-assisted methodologies to validate strategic decisions
The Problem
Ineffective authentication flows and complex form processes drive substantial revenue leakage through booking abandonment.
China Airlines' desktop booking platform shows a significant performance gap despite accounting for 45% of total bookings. With only an 8% conversion rate—well below EVA Air's 12% and industry standards—the platform undermines the carrier's market position and revenue potential.
35%
of corporate users abandon bookings due to authentication friction
28%
of family group users abandon bookings due to complex form process
The impact is most pronounced in two high-value segments:
Corporate Travelers experience a 35% booking abandonment rate, resulting in $14.4M annual revenue leakage
Family Groups face a 28% abandonment rate, accounting for $15.8M in lost revenue
This digital friction particularly affects users managing complex bookings requiring extensive form-filling and group coordination. By addressing core friction points in authentication, session management, and form design, China Airlines can potentially recover $20.5M (85% of the $30.2M total leakage) in revenue while significantly enhancing customer satisfaction and competitive positioning.
User Segment Prioritisation
Strategic segmentation reveals high-value conversion opportunities requiring targeted intervention for corporate and family travellers.
Our analysis identifies two high-value desktop user segments with distinct needs and significant revenue impact. Rather than diluting efforts across all users, strategic prioritisation of these segments creates focused intervention opportunities:
High individual value: $980 average ticket
Strong loyalty metrics: 85% retention rate
Primary friction: Authentication complexity
High collective value: $3,780 average booking (4.2 travellers)
Significant ancillary potential: $150 per person
Primary friction: Form complexity and group coordination
Together, these segments represent 45% of desktop traffic but account for $30.2M in annual revenue leakage—with family groups surprisingly contributing the larger share ($15.8M) despite their smaller user base.
This targeted approach enables precise resolution of high-impact pain points while creating solutions that benefit the broader user ecosystem, maximising both conversion efficiency and development resource allocation.
Understanding User Journey
Authentication friction and multi-passenger form complexity create substantial revenue leakage through critical conversion drop-offs at key booking touchpoints.
Journey mapping reveals critical conversion gaps at key touchpoints, with significant underperformance compared to industry benchmarks. Most notably, the transition from flight selection to login shows a substantial -20% performance deficit.
20%
flight selection to login performance gap
10%
initial search to flight selection performance gap
10%
payment to confirmation performance gap
Corporate Traveler Pain Points:
Authentication Complexity: Multiple verification steps with 15-minute timeouts
Business Policy Friction: Limited corporate rate visibility
Documentation Burden: Manual expense reporting processes
Impact: 14,700 lost bookings annually ($14.4M revenue leakage)
Family Group Traveler Pain Points:
Coordination Complexity: Separate form completion for each passenger
Hidden Costs: Seat selection fees revealed late in the booking process
Session Limitations: Progress lost during complex multi-passenger bookings
Impact: 4,200 lost group bookings annually ($15.8M revenue leakage)
Both segments experience systemic friction that significantly impacts conversion at the authentication and transaction completion stages—creating substantial opportunities for targeted optimisation.
Prioritisation
Strategic form optimisation delivers cross-segment benefits with balanced technical requirements and platform evolution potential.
Our analysis identified two high-potential intervention strategies with distinct value propositions. While enhanced session management offered higher immediate revenue recovery ($10.3M), we strategically prioritized progressive form design ($6.3M) due to its broader ecosystem benefits and foundational impact.
The progressive form design solution, targeting family group travellers, delivers three key strategic advantages:
Cross-segment value creation - Form complexity and fee transparency improvements benefit all user segments
Balanced implementation profile - Moderate technical complexity with 6-8 week timeline enables rapid value delivery
Foundation for future optimisation - Creates scalable architecture for subsequent enhancements
This approach aligns with industry benchmarks indicating significant conversion improvements through form optimisation while minimising implementation risks. By addressing fundamental user experience challenges, this strategic investment establishes a solid foundation for China Airlines' digital transformation roadmap.
Solution
Transparent fee disclosure and early seat preview significantly reduce family booking abandonment while improving cross-segment satisfaction.
Our progressive form design strategy addresses three critical conversion barriers that create significant friction in the booking process. Each intervention targets a specific drop-off trigger identified through quantitative journey analysis:
Strategic Design Interventions
Fee Transparency Enhancement
Problem: 32% payment stage abandonment due to hidden costs revealed late
Solution: Upfront fee disclosure from initial flight selection stage
Impact: Reduces "price shock" at final booking stages, builds trust through transparency
Streamlined Group Booking Workflows
Problem: 12-16 minute completion time for family bookings (4.2 average travellers)
Solution: Intelligent field population and unified seat coordination interface
Impact: Reduces booking time to under 8 minutes, minimizes repetitive data entry
Early Seat Availability Visualisation
Problem: 28% form completion abandonment due to wasted effort on unavailable seating
Solution: Interactive seat preview immediately after flight selection
Impact: Enables informed decision-making before significant time investment in passenger details
The Success Metrics
Our strategic execution approach combines targeted intervention delivery with robust performance assessment. The 6-8 week timeline encompasses phased implementation across development components while establishing clear success metrics:
-40%
form abandonment rates for family groups
< 8min
average booking completion time (from 12-16 min)
seat selection satisfaction scores
Validation with 12 family group participants will focus on quantifiable efficiency metrics and qualitative experience assessment, establishing empirical evidence for intervention effectiveness before full-scale deployment. This structured framework enables precise validation of our hypothesised conversion improvements while creating the foundation for data-driven optimisation in subsequent release cycles.
Rollout Strategy
Two-phase rollout enables controlled validation of seat preview benefits before implementing broader fee transparency enhancements.
Our implementation approach leverages a strategic two-phase model that balances innovation with risk management:
Phase 1: Seat Availability Preview (A/B Testing)
This controlled initial phase allows for targeted validation of our core hypothesis - that early seat availability visibility significantly reduces booking abandonment. By limiting deployment to 20% of family bookings, we create a robust experimental framework while minimising potential disruption to the broader booking ecosystem.
Phase 2: Transparent Pricing Integration (Full Rollout)
The second phase represents a calculated expansion based on Phase 1 performance metrics. This evidence-based approach ensures that platform-wide implementation builds upon validated user behaviour patterns rather than theoretical assumptions.
The decision to structure implementation in this manner reflects three strategic priorities:
Risk mitigation - Isolating key components allows for precise evaluation of impact before broader deployment
Data-driven iteration - Performance metrics from Phase 1 directly inform Phase 2 optimisation
Rapid value validation - Early success indicators provide stakeholder confidence for continued investment
This implementation strategy aligns with the project's overall objective of delivering measurable conversion improvements while creating a foundation for sustained digital experience enhancement.
Future Steps
Design initiative establishes competitive digital parity while creating modular architecture for future experience innovations.
The progressive form design implementation establishes a strategic foundation for China Airlines' digital transformation, targeting an improvement in conversion rates from 8% to 12% to achieve competitive parity with EVA Air.
This initial optimisation creates three key strategic assets:
Our solution enables iterative enhancement across user segments without requiring comprehensive platform redevelopment
Implementation metrics provide actionable insights for future optimisation priorities
Enhanced family booking processes establish a distinctive market position in Taiwan's competitive aviation landscape
Future evolution opportunities include intelligent profile management, advanced group coordination tools, and predictive seat mapping based on party composition. These enhancements would further strengthen China Airlines' digital capabilities while reducing operational support requirements.
Beyond immediate revenue recovery, this transformation positions China Airlines to build a sustainable competitive advantage through experience-led innovation - ensuring the desktop platform continues to deliver value for complex booking scenarios in an increasingly mobile-first world.
Takeaways
This project demonstrates how identifying critical conversion barriers and quantifying their revenue impact enables strategic design prioritisation. By focusing on authentication friction and form complexity affecting high-value segments, I developed targeted interventions with clear implementation pathways. This experience has strengthened my ability to make data-driven design decisions that balance immediate business impact with long-term platform evolution, while ensuring implementation strategies minimise risk through controlled validation before full-scale deployment.