Routehappy helps pick best flights
2012-10-09 07:16
New York - Do you care enough about extra legroom, the friendliness of flight crew and the tastiness of food to actually book a flight according to these little extras?
New York-based startup, Routehappy is so sure you do that they've based their entire business plan on it, and hope it might also bring in a few extra bucks.
According to Skift Routehappy is bringing a level of data about flight amenties to masses of passengers that until now only the most avid aviation geeks would have been aware of. Routehappy's challenge is to see how much consumers really care about flight amenities as they vary aircraft to aircraft.
And how would they do this, you might ask...
Well, their hope is that online travel agencies would syndicate its user-generated content and ratings, and that airlines might even "license what Routehappy believes is competitive data of a granular nature that carriers have never been privy to."
The company launched its search-engine type website in March and have also in the mean time developed an iPhone app. Using these, Routehappy enables travelers to search for flights based on the roominess of the seats, the moodiness of the crew, the tastiness of the food, the flight duration, the type of aircraft, and travelers' reviews and tips about a particular flight.
Despite all of these options, CEO Robert Albert concedes that passengers are still mostly price-driven.
"Most of the time you are still going to buy the cheapest price," Albert says. "But if the fares are all basically the same, shouldn't you get the most for your money?"
While Routehappy's target consumer audience is frequent flyers, it also hopes to attract a wider audience of casual travelers, Albert says.
While this may seem like a bit of a pie in the sky idea, the fact that the company is backed by a wealth of travel industry veterans seems to suggest that it might just be the way forward for flight bookings.
Co-founders include CEO Robert Albert, formerly general manager of Site59 and a media executive at Travelocity, and vice president of data Adam Gwosdof, who co-founded Applimation and formerly was a travel planner at Ovation Corporate Travel.
TripIt co-founder and Hotwire launch team executive, Scott Hintz and former chief of marketing at Virgin America are just two of the influential advisers.
