Hello there. We hope you had a great weekend.

We believe that all good products should solve a problem in a way that is unique, cost-effective, and now a new emerging requirement – have a mixture of beautiful design, simplicity, and fun.  Whether or not we’ve fully embraced these is yet to be seen; however, we do know that we started with a problem we observed. Let’s step back a bit.

The Air Consumer Travel Association (http://www.dot.gov/airconsumer ) is a part of the Department of Transportation that monitors consumer complaints. Here’s a description of what they do:

The Office of the Assistant General Counsel for Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings, including its Aviation Consumer Protection Division, monitors compliance with and investigates violations of the Department of Transportation’s (Department) aviation economic, consumer protection, and civil rights requirements. The Office also provides legal review and support on aviation economic licensing matters.

Beyond the funny super long name (27 syllables at our first count), this group plays an important role in capturing passenger feedback, especially when as a traveler, you don’t see recourse in getting help with your challenge. There are very many outlets for venting; however, it’s difficult to assess which one of these is particularly effective. It’s safe to say that this team has a lot to improve on, as the mode for reaching out is a web form: http://1.usa.gov/10LOLvP . We’re glad to see they have a separate process for safety and security issues.

The agency puts out a report each month about passenger complaints. We were able to dive into January’s report and with a little help from infogr.am, here’s what we built:

These resonate pretty well with our flying experiences as well. First of all, the majority of feedback from folks is in the complaint category. With only 2 compliments, there’s definitely room to improve.

Here’s what the breakdown of those comments are:

 

The Challenge

The challenge that airlines have is that the consumer experience is just one of the many things they have to deal with. (We’ll talk about this in an upcoming post). We believe that they actually do care about the feedback coming their way. However, that feedback is incredibly large, very unstructured, and comes from multiple sources. This makes reaching out to customers and correcting issues extremely difficult to act upon. The feedback process is asynchronous, and as such, makes it difficult to react to customer feedback quickly.

We’ll go into more detail in our next post. Until then, we’re proud to share that v1.0 of How Was Your Flight? is now available on the Android Marketplace! You can find the link here: http://bit.ly/14tm0HK!

Until next time,

@hwyflight

 

Hello World. This is our first blog entry, on what should (fingers-crossed) be the last week of product development before our app hits the app store.

So what’s the hoopla all about?

Good products solve a problem. Great products and services see that gap and create a simple and creative way to fill it. Hopefully that filler kills the mind the gap announcements (Ha!) and also provides value at the same time.

It started with a something simple – a love for travel. As we worked to conquer our wanderlust, there were three things that we observed:

1. Most people purchase their tickets by price. Even frequent flyers and business travelers have become price-conscious buyers, and while loyalty programs are excellent benefits, switching costs are extremely low in the airline industry.

2. What people pay for is directly proportional to the experience they expect. Nothing’s more true when it comes to airfare and air travel. If I’m going to pay a first class fare, by golly I better get a first class experience. If not, expect me to pack my bags and go somewhere else. Similarly, if I can eke out a $99 ticket to my destination, I literally count myself the luckiest traveler on the planet for finding that fare and the minimum I expect is that the airline will get me to my destination safely, and *hopefully* my bags will arrive.

These two dynamics are subtle but fascinating – there’s a huge match between the experience people expect and people pay for. But should that be the case? To a certain extent. However, we think differently on what the baseline of a great flight experience should be.

3. What’s taking soooo long? Everyone that has traveled has experienced this. From the moment you land and are once again bathed in the warm embrace of being able to use your electronic device, to when you’re actually able to leave the plane, there’s the awkward looong wait. We see that wait as an opportunity.

4. Dude – it’s so great to see you! The last piece is what we used as our north star in naming the product, as it’s the first thing that your friends/family/colleagues ask. You guessed it: “How Was Your Flight?”. Soon after that, the flight experience sharing begins.

That brings us to our product – get ready for marketing speak.

“How Was Your Flight?” is a free smartphone application that allow travelers to rate their flight experiences, share them with their friends, and discover local offers in the destination city.

That’s our app in a nutshell. It’s great to meet you too.

Our next post: what the problems are, and how we think we can help solve them.

@hwyflight.