

FlightCaster (YC S09) Takes Off With $1.3 Million In Funding And A New API  - jasonlbaptiste
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/23/flightcaster-flight-delay/

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amichail
_Flightcaster manages to predict ten times as many delays as the airlines do._

What does this mean? Do the airlines know about the potential delays but are
unwilling to tell the public in most cases?

If Flightcaster really does have better tech than the airlines, then their
major customers should be the airlines.

~~~
simonk
Flightcaster is all about the probability of being delayed though. The big
customer is business users who will rebook on a flight that has less of a
chance of delay. Airlines don't want that.

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developer123
I saw this comment on the WSJ - *

This is an intriguing idea, but the problem I see is that airlines will not
rebook you (fee-free, at least) until their own internal procedures have
declared a delay or cancellation of a flight. By that point having the intel
becomes useless.

Seems like a good point

~~~
JimmyL
It depends on who "you" are in this example. If you're someone who is flying
for personal reasons or non-mission critical business reasons, then you're
100% right - knowing ahead you'll probably be late is interesting, but not
enough to do anything about since you don't want to pay change/cancellation
fees. I'm this guy when I travel for personal reasons.

But I also travel a lot for business, and when I do, travel is 100% critical.
If I don't show up when I am scheduled to, there will often be several
thousand people - not to mention three national news networks - waiting for me
and my traveling party. Those people won't wait around, and will embarrass me
and my people on a national stage.

Hence, for business travel, I use a travel management company for all my
movements. I fly full-fare economy (so there are effectively no penalties to
change my flights), and have a someone who gets paid a significant commission
to monitor the status of my travel plans and adjust them on the fly based on
weather and traffic conditions. Maybe 1.5 times per month I'll get a
call/email from my travel guy some time between a day and a few hours before
my departure telling me something has changed - either my routing or my
departure time (incidentally, my travel guy is the only person outside my team
who has access to our detailed daily calendar, so he can adjust for this).

I have no doubt that my travel manager would pay good money for this
information, if it was statistically reliable. For people who travel for fun,
I think you're right - a delay isn't a delay until the airline says it is. But
for people who absolutely have to get where they're going - to the level that
they'll charter a plane on an hours' notice if needed - this would be
invaluable.

~~~
developer123
Previous comments from JimmyL :

"I work in a moderately-progressive workplace, and if I ever need to seek the
input of a supervisor on a big issue/something that may come back to haunt me,
I'll talk to them about it, and then send them an email saying what we
decided. This makes it clear what the decisions was (and more importantly, how
I interpret it) and provides documentation to both sides that the issue was
discussed and a conclusion reached."

"When I know I am wrapping up a coding session, I'll often leave a few trivial
things unfinished - so that when I sit back down again for the next session,
I'll have an easy place to jump right back in, and it will force me to
(consciously or otherwise) get back to somewhere near the mental state I was
in when I half-finished the thing."

Are you really as important as you make out?

~~~
wallflower
Yes, I had the same idea after reading his comment above. I went back and read
his last X comments.

He seems to be a Canada-based programmer.

EDIT: _However_ :

"I mentioned that I've got no in-industry peer networking contacts, but I have
a few very good ones in politics. Specifically, I've got a possible job offer
through one to be one of the two or three advance guys for a very senior
national politician. It would be a year of traveling around the country with
them, likely including an election, and would be incredibly exciting."

Note: It is scary how much we reveal ourselves through our Internet postings

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=667547>

~~~
JimmyL
I took that job - hence the travel.

If you're interested in the back story, shoot me an email at
M8R-houvju@mailinator.com and we'll chat.

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swannodette
Clojure's first big success story! (beyond the how fantastic the language is
itself :)

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bobbyi
_Flightcaster manages to predict ten times as many delays as the airlines do.
And they manage to stay 90% accurate (which is on par with the airlines)._

They're equally accurate, but predict ten times as many delays? Doesn't that
imply that only a negligible percentage of flights are successfully predicted
as delayed by either party?

~~~
dartland
4 hours out, airlines notify users of ~4% of flights that will eventually be
delayed 1+ hours.

FlightCaster right now captures 40% of those flights 4 hours out (and growing
as the algorithm is improved).

That is the origination of the statistic.

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dmix
Congrats, the b2b partnerships sounds like a solid business model. Plus it'd
be easier to charge a frequently travelling exec for the service then the
average consumer.

Hopefully the service can expand outside of the US. I see the limited/varied
data of each country as the biggest technical hurdle they'll have to overcome.

~~~
malbiniak
I'm a frequent business traveler, but I don't see being able to expense flight
change based on predictive analysis.

Is there anyone within the travel industry that can speak to the market demand
for this? Does this cost the airlines $x/year, or booking services?

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coffeemug
Congrats, guys! I did quite a bit of traveling recently, and I found myself
checking FlightCaster for a peace of mind. Great team, and a great product!

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hussong
Congrats to Jason and the FlightCaster team!

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drusenko
Congrats guys! Glad to see that I'll still be able to use the service well
into the future :)

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mcxx
Any inspiration of some cool stuff that can be built with their API?

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dlevine
Congrats

