

YC-Funded Flightcaster Tells You When Your Flight Is Delayed - mgcreed
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/18/yc-funded-flightcaster-tells-you-when-your-flight-is-delayed-hours-before-the-airline-will/?awesm=tcrn.ch_72j8&utm_campaign=techcrunch&utm_medium=tcrn.ch-twitter&utm_source=direct-tcrn.ch&utm_content=twitter-publisher-main

======
kyro
I can't help but imagine pilots checking the statuses of their own flights,
thousands of feet up in the air, punching the gas to beat their odds.

Congrats on launching!

------
kitcar
I have a neat viral marketing / mailing list building idea for you if you like
- a local radio news station here has a "weather guarantee".

They have a pool of prize money which increases daily. Every day on the radio
they say what their guaranteed weather high is - if they don't hit it, they
pick a name from their member database and give them the pool and start over
again. Therefore you must join their database in order to win the prize - and
the contest itself reaffirms the accuracy of the radio broadcast (if they are
willing to be against their weather estimates they must be good!)

What you can do is have the same model with a daily flight time guarantee, and
give away a free copy of the app as a prize. People who are going to buy your
app will likely do it anyways, so this is a way to collect all the info of the
"tire kickers" so you can slowly remind them over 3-12 months why they should
buy your app. The viral part can come from getting additional entries in the
pool by recommended your friends.

Just a random thought that popped in my head - something to consider while you
have all this early launch hype surrounding you..

------
Frocer
I am flying this Friday so I will make sure to test it out. That's a pretty
steep price for the iPhone app though... if you guys can recommend me
alternative routes then that would be worth paying for, but at the current
stage I don't see myself paying for an app just to check if my flight will be
delayed or not.

When I was a consultant, I used to travel every week. What irritated the heck
out of me is these in-route weather conditions. So for instance, if I am
flying from Dallas to NY, and there's bad weather somewhere in the middle,
they will cancel the flight. If you can recommend me to get on a flight that
will go around the problem (such as Dallas -> Miami, Miami -> NY), then it
would be really useful. But this is probably only useful for business
travelers since casual travelers probably won't be willing to shell out the
extra airfare.

~~~
pchristensen
_That's a pretty steep price for the iPhone app_

I vehemently object. This is an EXTREMELY valuable service, not a fart
generator or lightsaber, and you should proudly charge $10, $15, $20, or more!
You can always lower the price later but now is your only chance to establish
a high perceived value for your product.

~~~
Frocer
Well, I just officially tested the service.

According to FlightCaster my flight is 85% chance of being on-time, but after
getting to the airport my flight is delayed. I am waiting at the gate right
now, and no reasons were given by the airline.

I am sure it's not weather related since it's SF to LA... and the site still
says it will be on-time. How frequently do you update the forecasts?

~~~
bradfordcross
Hi Frocer, sorry I missed this. can you ping me directly with mroe info?
bradford dot n dot cross at gmail dot com

------
zaatar
I'm trying to understand how this differs from <http://www.tripit.com/>

~~~
tim_sw
I think tripit tells you delays when the airline/faa actually announces
delays, vs flightcaster which tries to do it earlier.

~~~
spolsky
Read this:

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/10/13.html>

It's pretty rare for airlines to be honest about delays at departure time.
Rather than update their online databases when they know they're running late,
they wait until the flight has taken off, because then they only have to
update it once. It's pretty maddening. I can't tell you how often I've been
standing at a gate with a big LED sign that says ON TIME for, say, a 5 pm
departure, when the current time is 5:30 and there's no aircraft in sight.

For frequent travellers this may give you enough information to get rebooked
before everybody else does. For example if there's an 8AM flight and a 10AM
flight, but the 8AM flight is running 3 hours late, there's going to be a
stampede to get rebooked on the 10AM flight, which might only have a few empty
seats. The first person to figure this out is going to get one of those seats.
This app is very reasonably priced for the audience of frequent flyers who
would benefit from it.

~~~
jwilliams
Joel - you are spot on with this... I've seen this happen so many times. They
don't want people to leave the gate, so they'll trickle out delays (15mins,
30mins another 15mins).

The other one I love -- When they are late they announce it as "due to late
arrival of the incoming aircraft". Not sure what this is exactly meant to
mean, but to me this is "we're late".

~~~
akronim
Root cause analysis isn't really their strength, in their announcements
anyway. Do they think people would get upset if they knew the core reason for
the problem or something?

------
jim-greer
This sounds really cool and I will check it out next time I fly. One thing -
is the patent on your patent-pending algorithm really appropriate? Necessary?
I imagine there's some prior art, too, since I bet the airlines have
statistical models to predict whether their own flights are going to be late
based on weather, congestion, etc.

------
ujjwalg
Neat idea. I think it will be really useful if you provide a track record of
what percentage of your predictions are right. Otherwise, this service is
mostly going to be useful to business customers who buy flexible tickets.
Someone like me, is not going to take a chance even if you say 80% probability
of a delay on an economy class ticket.

~~~
bradfordcross
It is true that avid business travelers will likely get the most "mission
critical" use from our service. Nevertheless, we hope the general traveling
public find value in it as well. It can be good to know this info, even if you
are not going to rebook.

~~~
ujjwalg
It can also provide a wrong sense of security which might turn out to be more
harm than good for a normal customer.

Providing a track record will be extremely helpful IMHO.

------
100k
Just in time for Demo Day! Nice writeup.

~~~
rokhayakebe
When is demo day by the way?

~~~
100k
Tomorrow!

------
hypermatt
Question is do you have a sustainable model, once everyone buys your app you
don't a new stream only from new customers. I just bought your app ;) just
wondering if I have to worry about the future of it.

~~~
tim_sw
I'm pretty sure that there'll be other business models besides mobiles apps if
data proves to be valuable =)

------
paul9290
Cool .... do you have an API?

~~~
jaf12duke
No API yet--but stay tuned...it's coming! Thanks~ Jason (@FlightCaster)

~~~
icey
When it comes, be sure to post it here :D

