Travelers who want to have a basic idea of the odds of their flight being on time or not have to rely on last month’s data on most Web sites. Obviously, those are an inexact science at best and the information is dated. Flights within 15 minutes of scheduled arrival don’t count, commuter planes don’t show the data and besides, it’s last month. You care about this month.
A new company called Flightcaster.com plans to arm travelers with more information. But it’s a potential mixed blessing, because their idea is to tell you what the odds are of your particular flight being on time.
The company has a pending patent on an algorithm that purports to incorporate:
In-bound aircraft tracking
Weather forecasts
FAA monitoring
10 years of flight history
When you type in your flight, the flightcaster display shows an easy-to-read display with the odds of the plane being “on time, less-than-60-minutes-late, or more-than-60-minutes-late.” Plus, it shows all the potential delay factors, weather, the airline’s own information, airport conditions and, if they have the information, status of the aircraft itself.
Flightcaster.com is available for free on its site, but they also sell an iPhone and Blackberry application.
For many travelers, this could be a godsend; forewarned is forearmed.
It might mean being first in line or first on the phone to rebook. For many other travelers, however, it could be one more major stress factor. My husband, for example, is not a relaxed traveler. Tell him there is a 30 percent chance of a delay, and he will worry nonstop, about connections, luggage, hotel arrival, you name it. Not to mention the “what if they just cancel it?” worry.
On the other side of the coin are the travelers who are just a little too relaxed. If the site says 75 percent chance of delay, they figure they will show up at the airport later accordingly. Then if the airline gets the plane out on time, they may well miss it. Or, have their seat assignments given away.
Another potential issue — sometimes airlines really do know that a plane is late and they simply haven’t posted the potential new departure time. This happens when the incoming aircraft is delayed, or the crew is arriving on a delayed flight. Which often means a passenger who asks for a change to such a delayed flight may easily be accommodated if there is space on another flight.
In my experience particularly with United Express, while the United computer will show the crew or plane arriving late, the gate agents will have different, and sometimes wrong, information.
At Denver airport recently, the gate agent insisted that the crew had landed at 8:35 p.m. and were making their way to the gate, when the United computer, which as a travel agent I could pull up on my laptop, said they wouldn’t arrive until 8:55 p.m. Guess who was right?
There is finally, as with most things, the jerk factor. If a passenger decides, using his handy dandy software that the odds of a delay are significant enough, and the airline disagrees, then it’s a potentially interesting situation as to whether or not that airline will rebook the person involved. And as we’ve all seen, there are jerks on both sides of the airline counter.
Flightcaster.com has been raising money from venture capitalists, so it’s uncertain how popular, even ubiquitous they may become, or even if they will survive. But with the whole airline experience increasingly feeling like a battle, this could be one more weapon on the side of the traveler.
(Photo: Aquila/Flickr Creative Commons)
Janice Hough is a California-based travel agent a travel blogger and a part-time comedy writer. A frequent flier herself, she’s been doing battle with airlines, hotels, and other travel companies for over three decades. Besides writing for Travelers United, Janice has a humor blog at Leftcoastsportsbabe.com (Warning, the political and sports humor therein does not represent the views of anyone but herself.)
