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Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - UK

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MI5, News and Airline Site Visits Soar on News of Averted Terrorist Attack

August 11, 2006

Yesterday's announcement that Scotland Yard foiled a terror plot to blow up six transatlantic flights from London sent chills through the UK as the terror alert was raised to the highest level. Flights were cancelled, security screenings tightened and airports were in chaos. We looked at Hitwise daily data from yesterday to see where consumers turned for information.

Share of UK visits to BBC News were up 50% yesterday and the site became the 9th most visited internet site, up from 14th the previous day.
The British Airport Authority (BAA) was a top destination for information, with share of UK visits to BAA's website up 8 fold (see chart below). The site became the 64th most visited website in the UK, up from 544th on Tuesday, marking the site's highest daily rank in the past 12 months by almost 300 places.
Websites for the UK's two biggest airports, Heathrow and Gatwick, also saw a dramatic surge: Gatwick Airport became the 21st most visited Travel site and Heathow Airport increased more than 200 positions to rank as the 23rd most visited Travel site.
Share of Visits to the Aviation category were up 79%, with the websites for easyJet, Ryan Air and British Airways all experiencing a significant increase in share of UK visits (48%, 76% and 61% respectively).
Share of visits to travel agencies were down 19% yesterday, indicating that consumers were contacting airlines directly for updates on delays and cancellations.
UK consumers also appeared to be looking for alternative travel arrangements with share of visits to Eurostar up 53% and share of visits to Direct Ferries up 38%.
Share of visits to news sites were almost on a par with July 7th last year, the day of the London bombings, accounting for 5.26% of all UK internet visits and up 18% from the previous day. The News sites for the BBC, Yahoo! Google , MSN and Sky were all up yesterday.
With the terror alert elevated to "critical" the websites for MI5 and The Home Office were also popular sources for updates yesterday. MI5's website leapt in the daily rankings from 254 to 9th among Government sites and The Home Office site jumped from 75th to 10th. Visits to MI5's website rose 18 fold and visits to The Home Office website rose 6 fold.