Flightfox (YC S12) Raises $800k to Crowdsource Flight Search
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Some immediate concerns:
Is this really a problem that most people have? (i.e., do most people think Kayak sucks that much?)
Even if they do, how often is this a problem? Once a year?
Are you cooked if Google finally makes a decent flight search engine?
Do the most frequent/valuable flyers even care? (business flyers who aren't paying the fare anyway)
Your solution is full of friction and extremely slow (paying, waiting for results, administering a contest, etc). This model works for 99designs because hiring designers is even more annoying and unpredictable than running an auction. Is flight search the same kind of problem?
The angle, of course, is that you can "resell" the surfaced deals. i.e., when a good deal is surfaced you can promote it on your homepage, sell it to others, and hopefully make a nice commission from the airline. I get that. I just don't see enough people using the service to surface enough deals for this kind of serendipity, and there's nothing to stop Kayak/Orbitz/etc from scraping the deals you do find.
That said maybe you'll learn enough about 'why flight search sucks' that you'll invent a killer new engine and get rich. But I don't think crowdsourced deal finding for flights is a viable idea.
Flightfox exploits inefficiencies in algorithmic search using good ol' people power. That means, for the most part, material savings of time and money.
Clearly we're not talking about 1-hour flights between US continental cities. Instead, when you fly abroad, especially stopping in multiple cities, our experts can save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. They can make better use of frequent flyer miles, get you into first class for the very first time, construct RTW itineraries to places you never dreamed, and even give you first-hand destination advice.
A recent NY Times article suggested almost 50% of people spend more than 2 hours finding flights, while 20% spend 5 hours. That survey was done in the US, where there's a skew towards domestic. In our early research (and experience living and flying throughout 6 continents), people absolutely detest travel search. This is also why traditional travel agents are regaining ground.
Flightfox, in its current form, is just the beginning. We thoroughly believe that human interaction, and especially crowdsourcing, will regain popularity in travel and flights. It's one of those industries where there's too much inefficiency, wasted time, and latent value.
todd
Saved several thousand dollars.
It's worth checking out, especially if you have a complex itinerary where the flight algorithms actually know less than the flight experts.