Tripadvisor now lets users rate flights like hotels | Hacker News Reader

Tripadvisor now lets users rate flights like hotels

qz.com

58 pointsuptown35 comments

Rating flights is a very tricky business. Airlines already have some dodges to get around automated reports of things like on-time percentages (for example, if a flight is chronically delayed they can change its flight number and that will wipe the performance history of the flight on several trackers).

And rating the aircraft itself is wading into really dangerous territory given aircraft swaps and mixed fleets. For example, American's 777-200 varies depending on refit status: some are 9-across in economy, but the new configuration is 10-across with narrower seats. You wouldn't want to book based on a review for the old config and wind up jammed into the new.

So while it's nice to offer as a gesture, I don't think it's going to be particularly feasible/useful; the data curation necessary to make the reviews accurate won't just be hard, it'll be essentially impossible.

Don't forget about SeatGuru (http://www.seatguru.com), a TripAdvisor company, which specializes in collecting and curating exactly this kind of data. They're not exactly n00bs at this kind of thing…

Seatguru can tell you "the 777-200 config version 1 looks like this", but can't tell you "the flight you're booking will have that aircraft in that configuration". They can tell you that historically it often is that aircraft/configuration, but that's not actually enough to project forward into the future with full reliability.

And that's the hard part. It's even worse for the more common case of domestic flights, because those get swapped way more often than long-haul international.

I have been hoping that EU would force airlines to disclose things like leg space.

The market is not working from consumer point of view, becsuse you don't really know what you are getting when booking the ticket.

I'd be interested in ratings for layover airports. The flight experience is pretty similar. But layover airports with a little playground for the kids are a huge bonus for me.

Also, airports with family restrooms and/or nursing rooms. Nothing is more fun than enduring stares while I try to provide some semblance of privacy for my wife at the gate.

Yes, I traveled alone with a 1 year old and 2 year old once, and at one airport it was logistically impossible for me to go to the bathroom.

I guess in that position, I'd take them with me to the handicapped stall and ask them to inspect the wall for a few minutes. :/

Agree completely, especially since it's not always readily obvious which airports are better than others if you're not already familiar with them. For example, in Chicago O'Hare is much larger and busier than Midway, but O'Hare hasn't seen any updates in almost 30 years. Though smaller, the facilities at Midway are much nicer.

This is somewhat available on TripAdvisor if you search for the airport itself by name, e.g. https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Airport-g187337-qFRA-Frankfurt_He...

The airport itself is not gathering ratings, but the restaurants and activities inside it are, and if there's a significant children's playground, it should show up as a rateable attraction under "Things to Do".

sleepinginairports.net focuses on, well, sleeping in airports but it also has guides and amenity/facility lists for most airports world wide

This implies airlines compete on customer service, which, with very few exceptions in niche areas, the most certainly do not.

They might start once consumers have a quantifiable measure of customer service.

Perhaps this will change that? I know Amazon's review section has dramatically changed my purchasing behavior for products.

False. Jet Blue is way better than United, for example.

But what percentage of passengers would fly Jet Blue over United at a more expensive fare?

Enough passengers to fill every Jet Blue flight, apparently. The existence of airlines that are not awful budget ones proves that plenty of consumers are willing to pay more for quality.

It depends on how expensive. Airlines that lose my luggage, charge crazy fees and have incredibly narrow seats often get dismissed out of hand unless they have significant discounts. I usually just check southwest first because of this.

Do you fly primarily in the US? Because I have noticed that most US airlines seem to be in a race to the bottom, but this is not the trend worldwide. I fly both Lufthansa and Turkish relatively frequently and everything about the experience with them, from the airports, to the customer service, to the food, is head-and-shoulders above every major US airline.

An even easier step would be Kayak allowing you to select how many checked bags you'll have, and baking those fees into the price. Less subjective than customer rating, but they still dont take even this minor step.

The trouble with rating flights is that unlike hotels I can't imagine too many people being minded to rate them unless they had a particularly unpleasant experience

Can't help thinking that the TripAdvisor's existing qualitative data on seat pitches from SeatGuru plus reliable statistical data on flight timings, and on time performance is going to be more informative. Skytrax have been ranking airline overall experiences for years as well.

> I can't imagine too many people being minded to rate them unless they had a particularly unpleasant experience

This is true but is it really substantially less true for hotels, or other businesses of any kind?

Hotels are differentiated in a way aircraft aren't, and people's hotel experiences are often very pleasant

Skyscanner has flight happiness ratings, but I'm not sure from whom the indicators come from

Primarily predictable things like red eye flights have lower satisfaction scores, in the form of a frowning red face, in contrast to a smiling green face.

I fly quite a bit, and a lot of it on the same routes. I'd love to be able to rate flights, but what's the point if the primary rating factors are the plane & the crew? Most delays these days aren't flight-specific (more airport specific), and there's very little consistency month-to-month with regards to which planes & crews are flying which routes.

It's true. Kayak prompted me to review some recent flights I booked through their site. "Time is almost up to review you British Airways flight to Boston" is spectacularly ineffective call-to-action and I didn't even open the email. I could barely remember anything significant about the flight anyway, it was neither terrible nor great. Who could even be bothered? And I did review several of the hotels and restaurants from my trip, so I am open to the general idea of it.

I'm wondering if it would be worthwhile if they had an uber-like rating system. It could prompt you to rate the flight right after you got off.

The trouble I see is: how is this going to be useful? All the reviews are going to be negative.

Seriously, who's going to give a positive review to a modern airline flight? They're all bad, it's just a question of exactly how miserable an experience it was.

Maybe with scaling it can be done: 5 stars: "meh", 4 stars: "lousy", 3 stars: "awful", 2 stars: "absolutely horrible", 1 star: "worst flight of my life!"

Also, how are they going to keep people from biasing their flight rating with their horrendous TSA experience?

Face it, commercial flying in the US these days is an absolutely miserable experience, even on the best days. They're going to have a real challenge making this rating system actually useful.

To be fair, a flight can be a horrible experience do to other passengers, and not the airline.

On average I think the experience at the airport is worse than the flight itself.

You haven't been on many cross-atlantic flights on economy seats if you think so

True. But it depends on your width/height.

From the article:

> Starting July 12, users were welcome to score their flights on a scale of 1 to 10 based on flight duration, quality of aircraft, in-flight amenities, and duration of itinerary.

So hopefully that'll help level out those sorts of criticisms.

And my experiences in airports has typically been decent, once I'm past the complimentary government-sponsored massage.

My biggest gripe with traveling is the TSA. I thought I read somewhere that airlines can voluntarily hire their own version of the TSA? If true, I might leave a bad review specifically for having to go through the TSA.

Interesting develoment, seems similar to what APEX (Airline Passenger Experience Association, an industry org consisting of airline companies) is establishing: http://apex.aero/2016/04/06/Official-airline-ratings-APEX-an...

Wonder who'll come out on top. From my understanding, the APEX one has an Amazon-like 'verified traveler' system where only those who traveled on those flights will get to rate them (though it might be limited to partner airlines, not sure about the specific details).

(Full disclosure: Used to worked for an agency that did work w/ APEX)

The issue with flights is that things like weather or mechanical issues can and do impact things, more so than hotels.

In addition, as frequent fliers can attest, the overall mood/personality of the working crew often varies even on the same airline and route, and can make or break the experience.

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