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Flighty Airports

flighty.com

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Re: Flighty Airports

#111

Post by GJim »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #89
culopatin wrote: post #69

How does an app like this make money? I made an app that I simply can’t promote because it would bankrupt me. Every person I share it with thinks it’s genius and been using it but if it ever hits critical mass without me knowing it, id be those guys with the “my cloud provider reamed me overnight” posts.

Why does everything have to make money? People like to built things as a hobby. If you stay away from expensive cloud providers and use cheap vServers, you can host a site like that for around 5-20$/month (depending on number of users).

Some people wonder why kids climb trees.

Re: Flighty Airports

#112

Post by jasode »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #89
culopatin wrote: post #69

How does an app like this make money? I made an app that I simply can’t promote because it would bankrupt me. Every person I share it with thinks it’s genius and been using it but if it ever hits critical mass without me knowing it, id be those guys with the “my cloud provider reamed me overnight” posts.

Why does everything have to make money? People like to built things as a hobby. If you stay away from expensive cloud providers and use cheap vServers, you can host a site like that for around 5-20$/month (depending on number of users).

>Why does everything have to make money? People like to built things as a hobby.

The gp asked a reasonable question. Your admonition about making money is misplaced because your assumption about it being a hobby is incorrect.

The website was developed by Flighty LLC. To answer the gp's question: Although the website itself doesn't have direct monetization, it acts as "inbound marketing" for the paid iOS app. Clicking on "Download Flighty" takes the user to the Apple App Store:

  In-App Purchases
  Week-to-Week Flighty Pro         $4.99
  Annual Savings Flighty Pro      $59.99
  Month-to-Month Flighty Pro       $9.99
  Annual Savings (Family Plan)   $119.00
  Lifetime Flighty Pro           $299.00
  Flexible Monthly (Family Plan)  $15.99
  Week-to-Week Flighty Pro         $4.99
  Week-to-Week Flighty Pro         $7.99
  Pro Family Lifetime            $449.00
  Annual Savings Flighty Pro      $59.99
The website's hyperlink url to the App Store page also has a tracking id so the company can attribute downloads/sales back to the webpage. This lets them see how well the "free website" is converting to paid customers. As a vehicle to generate sales leads, it seems to work very well. To wit... Wikipedia says the company has been in business for 7 years and it's been upvoted to the HN front page and we're discussing it. (The Flighty website is an example of the old saying, "The best advertising is free advertising.")

It's not just a $5/month VPS. Some cursory googling says Flighty gets data from the FlightAware Firehose api which costs a lot of money. The cost would exceed the financial resources of most people to make an equivalent free hobby website. (https://www.flightaware.com/commercial/firehose/documentatio...)

Re: Flighty Airports

#113

Post by AdamN »

friendzis wrote: post #102
halapro wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's this related to anything?

It means it's strictly unavailable for ~80% of people out there on Windows/Linux/Android?

It's a business - they're targeting revenues. Making it multi-platform would take alot of effort and the value just isn't there for them right now. The smart move is for them to become awesome on iOS (maybe they're close?) and then create an Android CX.

BTW, them being iOS-only means they're probably getting lots of marketing support from Apple and other perks. That can really help a startup.

Re: Flighty Airports

#114

Post by ymolodtsov »

ggsp wrote: post #110
ymolodtsov wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boarding times are basically not reliable at all. Any time I come 10m after the official boarding time on the ticket there's still a standing line.

My guess is that's because boarding a plane is a little bit like being an extra for a film, it's a hurry up and wait situation. If they printed the exact time boarding starts and people showed up then (and later), no flight would ever board on time. Better for the airline to print an earlier time and have people wait longer, so they can board as quickly as possible. Every minute behind schedule costs the airline mone…

Yes, and the actual time is probably too close to the official take off time.

But this is why Flighty probably doesn't show it, it's irrelevant.

Re: Flighty Airports

#115

Post by japanuspus »

ymolodtsov wrote: post #107
exidy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one of the most important pieces of data for a flight, its duration Flighty is all about getting you to the airport in time for your flight, so the most important pieces of information are things like departure times, connection times, delay information, terminal and boarding gate. These are prioritised in the interface. The flight duration is set when you book the flight and it's not going to change, there is no r…

Boarding times are basically not reliable at all. Any time I come 10m after the official boarding time on the ticket there's still a standing line.

Just don't try this on Ryan Air. A good friend got stuck at the airport on a Sunday night after being denied boarding because he waited out the standing line sitting on a bench right by the gate. As soon as the last person standing walked through the checkpoint the gate crew closed the gate -- and completely ignored my friend when he showed up 10 seconds later.

Re: Flighty Airports

#116

Post by nobrains »

sssilver wrote: post #75

Such delightful UI. One small thought: as I scroll down on a particular airport page, it would be useful for that page to always display the airport's name in a fixed position. I've opened up a few airports and scrolled down to look at the data, and then was unable to tell which page was which airport without scrolling the pages back to the top (I later realized I could just look at the URL, which is cool).

did u see the TV mode link? i wish more visualization sites had that.

Re: Flighty Airports

#117

Post by woadwarrior01 »

culopatin wrote: post #69

How does an app like this make money? I made an app that I simply can’t promote because it would bankrupt me. Every person I share it with thinks it’s genius and been using it but if it ever hits critical mass without me knowing it, id be those guys with the “my cloud provider reamed me overnight” posts.

Subscriptions on the iOS app. Per SensorTower, it's making ~$1m/month.

https://app.sensortower.com/overview/1358823008?country=US

Re: Flighty Airports

#118

Post by aledevv »

culopatin wrote: post #69

How does an app like this make money? I made an app that I simply can’t promote because it would bankrupt me. Every person I share it with thinks it’s genius and been using it but if it ever hits critical mass without me knowing it, id be those guys with the “my cloud provider reamed me overnight” posts.

The popularity and traffic it brings is a gain and a value itself. The web specialists will be able to simply convert it into economic value.

Re: Flighty Airports

#120

Post by barbs »

woadwarrior01 wrote: post #117
culopatin wrote: post #69

How does an app like this make money? I made an app that I simply can’t promote because it would bankrupt me. Every person I share it with thinks it’s genius and been using it but if it ever hits critical mass without me knowing it, id be those guys with the “my cloud provider reamed me overnight” posts.

Subscriptions on the iOS app. Per SensorTower, it's making ~$1m/month. https://app.sensortower.com/overview/1358823008?country=US

Makes me wonder then why they can't afford a team of Android developers to make the Android version.
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