Intriguing new airline booking site

Posted by: Dean Foust on March 10, 2008

I stumbled across this interesting new airline booking site called InsideTrip.com, that’s designed to not just show you all available flights based on fares and departure times, but also on “pain points” as well. And there’s a lot of pain in business travel these days, which I’ve long said now has all the romance of taking a Greyhound bus cross-country. While the site is still in beta, it could prove to be a Road Warrior’s best friend once it’s all grown up.

The creator of InsideTrip is Dave Pelter, a former executive at Farecast, a site that uses predictive algorithms to suggest whether you should book now (because fares on the route you’re searching are likely to rise, based on historical patterns) or hold off (because fares are likely to fall).

But Pelter’s new site is all about quantifying the level of “pain” you’re likely to encounter on each flight. He calculates this…

...by studying 12 variables for each flight—everything from the age and type of aircraft used on each flight, the amount of legroom, whether it’s a connecting flight, the location of the gate (will you have a long walk to make your connection?), and the historical odds that your luggage will get lost on this flight. You check off the variables that are most important to you, and InsideTrip will show not only the fares but the customized score for each flight.

As Pelter told Travel Weekly, “You’re a traveling father with a stroller in one hand and a toddler in the other. Do you want to take the flight that requires a long train ride between terminals in Atlanta, or do you want a flight that gets you closer to the gate and through security more quickly? Those are decisions that can affect which flight you pick, and this brings you the information along with the price and timing of flights.”

I ran a search for a hypothetical flight from Atlanta to New York LaGuardia, and it gave the highest score, a 90, to an American Airlines flight, which isn’t surprising given that American has a nice arrangement at the Atlanta airport where you bypass the general security checkpoint in favor of one devoted to American.

Check it out, run a few searches and let me know what you think.