nobody knows I'm unemployed because I've got so much money
UPROXX/iStockphoto
Flying is becoming both cheaper and more annoying with each passing day, which presents a challenge to companies in the ticket-selling business, like Google. How do you encourage people to fly and take the frustration out of this communal experience? The company’s answer is twofold: Get better at predicting delays, and do what airlines won’t: reveal the baggage fees and other hidden costs before you get there.
Google announced the changes in a blog post that details both new features. The fees will only be revealed for American, Delta, and United, for now — although it will likely expand over the next few months. But the real interest is the delay predictions, which Google is not waiting for the airlines to announce. When airlines announce delays, they’ll still tag them to flights, but the company is also going to use the history of flight delays and current conditions to guess delays, and alert users when they have an overwhelming confidence in the results. From the post:
Flights already shows delays, and now we’re sharing reasons for those delays and delay predictions too. Using historic flight status data, our machine learning algorithms can predict some delays even when this information isn’t available from airlines yet—and delays are only flagged when we’re at least 80% confident in the prediction. We still recommend getting to the airport with enough time to spare, but hope this information can manage expectations and prevent surprises.
Airlines are probably less than enthused about this, because, as any travel veteran can tell you, airlines have a certain lack of transparency around delays. Sometimes this is for good reason, but it can be frustrating for travelers to arrive on time and then have to burn a day waiting.
Google’s move also hints at a much broader shift in the travel industry. The search monster is very good at mining data and finding patterns, and the more data it collects, the more patterns it’ll find. This might be a help to airlines and travelers, not least because if there’s a consistent problem, it may be fixed. But it also means that as airlines try to monetize every pound that goes on an airplane, travelers will look for tools to keep money in their wallets.
After all, if a ticket is the same price on two airlines, but you’ll save money on fees on one, it’s no secret which travelers will pick first.
(via Google)
see how I told my boss to take this job and shove it!
from Carlos B2 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/uproxx/features/~3/d1m01z_NJJg/
via carlosbastarache216.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment