

FlightCaster (YC S09): United trounces Southwest in 2009 on-time % - jaf12duke
http://blog.flightcaster.com/united-trounces-southwest-in-2009-on-time-per

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jsackmann
If I'm looking at on-time stats to see if they should have a bearing on which
airline I fly, I care a whole lot about the definition of "on-time." I don't
care about being 15-30 minutes late, but I do care about not being 2 hours
late.

Again, this sort of thing should be adjusted for routes and airports, but
depending on your purpose in flying a route (going home, where your parents
will pick you up? flying to LAX to catch an intercontinental flight with a
tight connection?), a more granular breakdown is important.

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imp
Yeah, it would be cool if they could calculate the "expected minutes late" for
every carrier, broken down by route.

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notauser
You would really need to see the distribution as you can plan for a
consistently average delay, but unpredictable arrival can be a real pest.

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callmeed
I suspect this could be another service that FC offers–choose your desired
route _before you buy your ticket_ and find out who has the best on-time %

Partner with Orbitz/Expedia/Whoever so I can see it while I shop ... it would
definitely influence me to use that particular travel site.

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smackfu
Kayak has this today, though I'm not sure where the data is sourced from.
Flights get a little '%' icon if they have less than 75% on-time.

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ShabbyDoo
I wonder how much analyses like these help FlightCaster get good PR and better
search rankings. It seems that (1) these analyses would be of interest to
publications targeting potential FlightCaster users (travel-related, etc.) and
(2) it would be hard for a journalist to reference such an analysis without
providing some background on FlightCaster's services.

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adelevie
FlightCaster (and SeatGeek) are a new breed of startup that uses statistical
modeling to empower consumers in an industry that they usually have little to
no say in.

