Flying Out to Austria

In March I have to spend a few days in Austria because we have been given some European Community money to develop our free software in several east-European languages. So I thought it would be great to make the flight bookings online as a blind person using our WebbIE browser software with our free Thunder talking software. Two hours later and having learned a lot…well this is what you do. But in the future, it will only take about 15 minutes and, hopefully, you too will be able to do the same or similar bookings.

From the Start Menu, go to All Programs and Cursor down to WebbIE and Enter.

Shift Control W, to search the web, and type in “book ryanair”. Not the quotes, of course.

Enter on the first choice and cursor down to hear the following:

Webpage: Ryanair.com - The Low Fares Airline
Link 1: www.ryanair.com
SEARCH » SELECT » CONFIRM » CONTACT » PAYMENT » ITINERARY
Radio button 1: [Selected] Round Trip
Radio button 2: [Not selected] One Way
Where are you flying from?
Select Item 1: (Origin)
Select Item 2: (Destination)
Date to fly out?
Select Item 3: (24)
Select Item 4: (January 2007)
Link 2: javascript:open_calendar(1)
Date to come back?
Select Item 5: (24)
Select Item 6: (January 2007)
Link 3: javascript:open_calendar(2)
Number of passengers?
Select Item 7: (0)
Adults
Select Item 8: (0)
Children (under 16 years)*
Select Item 9: (0)
Infants (under 2 years)*
Input button 1: (SEARCH FOR FLIGHTS)

You need to go through the earlier items one by one by cursoring down and selecting, by pressing Enter , on what you want. In my case, I wanted a Return Trip which was already selected so I did not have to change that selection.

Pressing Enter on “Where are you flying from” allowed me to Cursor Down until I found London Standstead” so I pressed Enter on that choice.

Cursor Down some more and Enter on “Dates to fly out” and “Dates to Come back”. In each instance, press Enter and cursor down to the appropriate date and again press Enter.

Unless you have a bit of useful vision, just ignore the links such as link 3 that refer to Java Script and Calendar because it just doesn’t happen with speech.

I was not concerned with the children details and just opted for 1 passenger.

Press Enter when you reach “Input Button 1” and you will be able to use the Cursor Keys to listen to the page which gives you masses of information on flight options, prices, insurance and baggage etc. Its all very accessible. Good old Ryanair and I got the whole journey with insurance etc for £70 on the very days I wanted it, Stanstead to Gratz Return.

But there is a bit more to learn later in the website to do with payment and filling out your credit card details. All this is now pretty standard so I will do a separate Blog on card payments on the internet which applies here and to many other websites.