Hays Regional Airport
Hays Regional Airport has teamed with Fort Hays State University Informatics Capstone students to give its website a new look and feel to serve flyers better.
Along with the changes to the website, Hays Regional Airport is receiving a variety of videos that include a few commercials and testimonial pieces. These commercials and testimonial videos focus on promoting the convenience and ease of flying out of Hays Regional Airport, while also stressing the cost of customer’s time saving while using the airports services.
Ian Blankinship, Fort Hays State University senior and leader of the Capstone team, first was referenced to the Hays Regional Airport website project by City Manager Toby Dougherty, who put Blankinship in contact with Rick Rekoske, director of Hays Convention and Visitor Bureau.
“I was excited and eager to get the opportunity to work on a project for the city. Knowing that I would be able to give back to the city before I left was good motivation for the effort we put into the project,” said Blankinship.
One of the Hays Regional Airport’s major requests for the updated website was to focus on their True Cost Calculator, which is displayed on the home page. The old website’s True Cost Calculator was a stable image that presented the average round trip ticket prices and other fees that correlate with traveling to other airports instead of flying out of Hays Regional Airports. The new True Cost Calculator has become interactive and allows the user to input ticket prices of competing airports and automatically calculates others fees in order to more accurately show the price difference between flying local or elsewhere.
“I think it works a lot better than the old site and is more accurate in figuring out the cost savings of flying out of Hays Regional Airport,” said Blankinship. “It really shows the difference in time and money that you save by flying out of Hays.”
Another major change to the website is how it is viewed on mobile device. The new website is now mobile-friendly and can be easily used on all mobile devices.
The commercials and testimonials videos will be available on the website and on the Hays Regional Airports social media platforms.
The new Hays Regional Airport website can be found at http://flyhays.com.
The students involved with the project include Ian Blankiship, Wichita senior, Aaron Wondra, Wichita senior, Maggie Walters, Galva senior, and Yanira Ojeda, Salina senior.