GigaOM » RouteHappy

Routehappy looks to compile most flight travel data ever

Erica Ogg — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 14:00:57 +0000

Most airline search engines on the web are interested in, above all, one thing: finding you the best priced flight. But paying the least amount for a flight doesn’t guarantee you’ll like the experience. In September I wrote about New York travel startup Routehappy’s first attempt to help customers give feedback on air travel and find the best flight experiences, like whether the airline’s crew made the flight more bearable, or whether a flight has Wi-Fi so they could get work done. On Tuesday, Routehappy is unveiling a far more ambitious product: the ability to see reviews of almost every aspect of every flight in the world.

From the timeliness of a flight’s arrival, to the quality of the crew, to seat legroom, entertainment options, food quality, Wi-Fi and electrical outlets at each seat, Routehappy is attempting to do something that no other flight search aggregator does: put all that information about every single non-stop flight in one place. CEO and founder Robert Albert and his crew of seven have been working to combine the huge amounts of data out there about commercial airlines in a way that gives each flight a “happiness score” on its website and links to go purchase that flight somewhere else.

The happiness score is on a 10-point scale and shows up next to every flight listed on Routehappy.com. The scores are also color-coded and come with a happiness-level-appropriate emoticon. You can search at a glance based on the emoticon and score, or you can filter by specific amenity, like power outlets or roomiest seats.

But the fact that this product involves smiley faces belies the enormous undertaking involved. It’s quite a chore to get all that information to compile scores to begin with: there are 40,000 flight routes in the world, 700 airlines and 31 million flights every year. But there are also 200 types of aircraft in operation, and when accounting for each variation that a manufacturer makes, there are actually up to 800 different configured types of aircraft out there. And there’s more variation: “Each one of those subfleets has a different dimension of seats and amenities, and flyers rate all these things different,” said Albert. “So we’ve created a matching algorithm that’s collecting data from thousands of sources all over the world.”

In all, Routehappy’s algorithm matches every scheduled flight in the world, and scores every component of that flight, down to whether the in-flight entertainment is a seatback video player or an overhead monitor, as well as the space measurements of first class, business class and economy seating.

The goal is to help people looking for air travel to quickly make a decision based on all the pieces of data they’ve collected from around the world. The next step is sending them to a booking site. But even that act of linking all those flights is no small feat either. That’s because not every airline offers booking through its website — some only go through online travel sites, and there are some who don’t have websites at all. And that requires more work.

Albert cites one example: tourists who go to Burma have two airline options for flying within the country. For one of them, ”they don’t even have a website,” he said. “But we found a place to find a travel agent [to book a flight for] them.”

While a flight in Burma might seem as niche as it gets, that’s kind of the point: Routehappy’s service wants to be all things to all people, no matter where you want to fly.

“The devil is in the details,” said Albert, who is a travel industry veteran. “To do air travel well, you have to care about the details.”

But all of this focus on the other things doesn’t mean Routehappy isn’t going to address users looking for deals. Far from it. Early next year when the product is scheduled to leave beta, the company is adding the next, big — and possibly most important detail of them all — price.

Thumbnail image courtesy of Flickr user kossy@finedays

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Routehappy gets $1.5M to rank best flights, airports for travelers

Erica Ogg — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 12:00:03 +0000

There are almost 3 billion passengers that will take a seat on a commercial airplane flight this year, some seasoned veterans, but plenty of newbies. A new service aims to bring the two groups, and everyone in between, together to share useful data about the best airline routes, planes and the airports. It’s called Routehappy, and on Wednesday the New York startup is introducing itself officially to the world and announcing a $1.5 million round of funding.

The $1.5 million comes from a variety of travel-focused VC firms, including High Peaks Venture Partners, Contour Venture Partners and VoCap Ventures, and will be put toward scaling the huge amount of information Routehappy already has about routes, planes and airports.

Routehappy is both a website and a mobile app. CEO Robert Albert is a travel industry vet from Travelocity, and he knows that air travel can suck if you don’t know enough about it. As Albert put the company’s goal in a conversation last week: “We want you never to get stuck on a bad flight again.” That’s a tall order. But Routehappy says it has the answer: combining tons of data and the vast knowledge within the frequent traveler community.

The central piece of Routehappy is its “flight experience engine.” You don’t search for the cheapest flight like Kayak or Expedia, but the best flight: which seats are the roomiest, which planes have Wi-Fi, electrical outlets, and seatback video and who has the most on-time flights. Routehappy has collected all that data and with it ranks every flight from 60 airlines’ nonstop U.S. routes — it’ll be expanding to more in the future — and gives it a score out of 10.

Example: Best options for US Airways PHL to SFO routes.

Collecting the data was “a massive effort,” Albert told me. “We’ve taken every aircraft, down to the version, the cabin. We have so much more data than even airlines have.” For example, he said, “Instead of telling you a number, like a seat has 31 inches [of room], we said let’s analyze what’s a standard seat, what’s tight, what’s roomy, and tell people that.”

The road to Routehappy

When Albert resigned from Travelocity a few years back, he said was determined to find a better way to discover flight tips beyond googling. There are people who know Boston Logan to LAX or Seattle-Tacoma to Anchorage better than anyone. That’s why Routehappy has passenger reviews. Via the app, flyers can leave a review on any flight, including the service and condition of the plane, while the flight is happening. To encourage experts to share their knowledge, Routehappy has a fun, Foursquare-like aspect: the most frequent flyers of each route will be awarded “Route Expert” status.

In addition to reviewing flights, users are also encouraged to review airports too: the best airport food, the shortest security lines and more — anything that will help flyers get through the experience as happily as possible.

There are already 90,000 reviews, photos and ratings uploaded by users in more than 60 countries since the site has been in beta, he said.

There are apps like Hipmunk that have the “agony filter” that help travelers find the best flight, but that is still focused on price, and there’s no real community knowledge shared. As a frequent air traveler, I really like the user review aspect of Routehappy. Did you know Charlotte Douglas has nice, comfy rocking chairs to chill out in between flights? I did, and now I can tell other people. I had no idea that Detroit Metro is a brand-new airport with cutting edge amenities, or the location of the least-painful TSA security line in the United Terminal at SFO. These are things I should know, and are available via Routehappy.

I could probably find this stuff by googling or scanning frequent flyer or travel geek sites, but that’s a lot of work. I think Routehappy has identified a real need air travelers have besides shopping by price. The promise of flight rankings should lure less frequent flyers in, while the gamification aspect will keep the experts around.

And even though it’s brand new, Routehappy is already aiming to target flyers who don’t come to its site or app: its ultimate goal is to eventually have its Routehappy ranking on every travel site, from Hipmunk to Kayak, Expedia, United.com and more to reach as many potentially unhappy or lost travelers as possible.

Thumbnail image courtesy of Flickr user twinxamot

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