A Programmer's Opportunity?
Aug. 14th, 2005 09:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peristaltorThe wife was telling me of a news story the other day, a ranking of airlines based upon compliance to their own schedules, which company flew most or least on schedule. She was commenting upon how little niceties, such as providing stranded passengers with vouchers for food or lodging, or being honest with passengers about the actual delay, would go a long way to helping folks and fostering loyalties toward companies.
What many don't realize is the liability such common-sense niceties might become. Take overbooking, for example. The airlines all routinely overbook flights, up to 15% for some. They have realized that seldom do all the passengers arrive for a flight; to leave seats empty is to watch cash evaporate. Those few times where almost everyone does show up for a flight, the airline is required to offer stranded pax a full refund (usually in the form of a voucher for a later flight) PLUS a penalty, I think $400.
Similar penalties for non-compliance are mandated for late flights. Airlines, if they inform customers of delays longer than a certain FAA mandated length of time, are required to offer refunds plus penalties similar in size to those provided for overbooking, as long as the delay was caused by factors other than weather or other acts of God.
So what happens?
People tending the gates at airports are given no information as to the exact status of the flight. Instead, attendants can call requesting info, and, instead of being given the straight scoop, are forced to tell passengers of yet another 1/2 hour delay. Pax never do learn of the three hour delays caused by poor contingency management by the airlines themselves, caused by three hub airport traffic delays stacking into nightmare behind-schedule flights later in the day.
And, since the passengers never learn exaclty how long the delay will be, they cannot ask for a refund-plus-penalty as mandated by the FAA.
Information tech suddenly might be looking at a bonanza.
Imagine a website that tracked not only the schedules posted by given airlines, but extrapolated from these schedules the exact airplane that would be servicing each flight. Passengers, nervous at the gate about arriving in time for a transfer or a time-critical event, could log on and see exactly where on the globe the airplane scheduled to take them from Denver to Boston was, seeing as it is now nowhere in sight near the gate. The site would tap air traffic info for the extrapolated plane identifier, note its position and ETA, and get that info to the customer.
Customers can then prop up their laptops in front of gate personel and demand either a different plane in 15 minutes (quite unlikely), or a full refund plus penalty.
The site would pay for such info simply. If the plane was on-time, or slightly delayed, no fee. If, however, a poor-planning airline just got caught using an asymetrical information advantage against its prospective customers, and the site's info just garnered the passenger a refund plus penalty, the site would receive a modest "finder's fee" from the penalty.
For a few months or years, depending upon how reluctant airlines are to revamp their scheduling to reflect the growing traffic burden on certain hubs, someone could make a pretty bit of change on providing this service.
(If anyone out there capitalizes on this, just send me a check with what you think it's worth.)
What many don't realize is the liability such common-sense niceties might become. Take overbooking, for example. The airlines all routinely overbook flights, up to 15% for some. They have realized that seldom do all the passengers arrive for a flight; to leave seats empty is to watch cash evaporate. Those few times where almost everyone does show up for a flight, the airline is required to offer stranded pax a full refund (usually in the form of a voucher for a later flight) PLUS a penalty, I think $400.
Similar penalties for non-compliance are mandated for late flights. Airlines, if they inform customers of delays longer than a certain FAA mandated length of time, are required to offer refunds plus penalties similar in size to those provided for overbooking, as long as the delay was caused by factors other than weather or other acts of God.
So what happens?
People tending the gates at airports are given no information as to the exact status of the flight. Instead, attendants can call requesting info, and, instead of being given the straight scoop, are forced to tell passengers of yet another 1/2 hour delay. Pax never do learn of the three hour delays caused by poor contingency management by the airlines themselves, caused by three hub airport traffic delays stacking into nightmare behind-schedule flights later in the day.
And, since the passengers never learn exaclty how long the delay will be, they cannot ask for a refund-plus-penalty as mandated by the FAA.
Information tech suddenly might be looking at a bonanza.
Imagine a website that tracked not only the schedules posted by given airlines, but extrapolated from these schedules the exact airplane that would be servicing each flight. Passengers, nervous at the gate about arriving in time for a transfer or a time-critical event, could log on and see exactly where on the globe the airplane scheduled to take them from Denver to Boston was, seeing as it is now nowhere in sight near the gate. The site would tap air traffic info for the extrapolated plane identifier, note its position and ETA, and get that info to the customer.
Customers can then prop up their laptops in front of gate personel and demand either a different plane in 15 minutes (quite unlikely), or a full refund plus penalty.
The site would pay for such info simply. If the plane was on-time, or slightly delayed, no fee. If, however, a poor-planning airline just got caught using an asymetrical information advantage against its prospective customers, and the site's info just garnered the passenger a refund plus penalty, the site would receive a modest "finder's fee" from the penalty.
For a few months or years, depending upon how reluctant airlines are to revamp their scheduling to reflect the growing traffic burden on certain hubs, someone could make a pretty bit of change on providing this service.
(If anyone out there capitalizes on this, just send me a check with what you think it's worth.)