Am I Flying Boeing? • Hacker News Board

Re: Am I Flying Boeing?

#21

Post by slimshreydy » Thu, Mar 21, 2024, 7:09 PM UTC

mike_d wrote: post #18

slimshreydy wrote: post #2

Haha thanks to whomever shared this! I'm Shrey and I'm actually the guy who developed this site. I travel a ton (and run a travel company too!) and I kept having friends ask me how to avoid Boeing planes, so I figured i'd make this to help out. Hope y'all find it useful :)

> I travel a ton (and run a travel company too!) I would expect someone who works in the industry to know that this website is extremely misleading. The process of airlines assigning airframes to routes is not deterministic and accurate data only exists within the airlines internal systems, which even then is subject to change right up to departure. The data you get in your feed that indicates airframe is just the mo…

Yep, I do mention as much in the disclaimers for the site when you put in a flight. It's true that airlines fully have the right to change the aircraft, but they also reserve the right to change basically any part of your itinerary (e.g. move you from one flight to another under unexpected circumstances/IRROPS). I figure presenting info that has a high probability of being correct is better than not presenting any info at all just because of a chance of it being incorrect under IRROPS circumstances.

On the note of high probability: we do use data sources that plug into the GDS booking systems for the flights, so it's not just a historical thing for this site specifically. While that once again doesn't give us a guarantee, it's likely better than relying on previous route aircraft stats.

Re: Am I Flying Boeing?

#22

Post by mike_d » Thu, Mar 21, 2024, 7:36 PM UTC

slimshreydy wrote: post #21

mike_d wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I travel a ton (and run a travel company too!) I would expect someone who works in the industry to know that this website is extremely misleading. The process of airlines assigning airframes to routes is not deterministic and accurate data only exists within the airlines internal systems, which even then is subject to change right up to departure. The data you get in your feed that indicates airframe is just the mo…

Yep, I do mention as much in the disclaimers for the site when you put in a flight. It's true that airlines fully have the right to change the aircraft, but they also reserve the right to change basically any part of your itinerary (e.g. move you from one flight to another under unexpected circumstances/IRROPS). I figure presenting info that has a high probability of being correct is better than not presenting any in…

> we do use data sources that plug into the booking systems for the flights, so it's not just a historical thing

Yes, I know exactly where you are getting the data. Your OTA API is a booking system that is intended to provide basic information to travel agents. You'll be presented with an IATA equipment code, or more likely the intermediary providing you the API is expanding it to an airframe or using ADSB data to supplement the field (as I mentioned up thread). The data field exists mostly for wake classification and general seating guidance.

You'll notice despite huge consumer demand none of the major booking sites rolled out an airframe filter. Booking Holdings put it on their metasearch site Kayak.com, but didn't deploy it on their direct sites like Booking.com and Priceline.com.

> I figure presenting info that has a high probability of being correct

The accuracy is inversely related to peoples desire for the information. When the MAX aircraft are grounded for example, you'll have massive fleet shuffles and the booking system does not get updated.

It is like advertising that you have a 100% accurate earthquake predictor (except when an earthquake happens).

Re: Am I Flying Boeing?

#23

Post by mike_d » Thu, Mar 21, 2024, 10:18 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #3

slimshreydy wrote: post #2

Haha thanks to whomever shared this! I'm Shrey and I'm actually the guy who developed this site. I travel a ton (and run a travel company too!) and I kept having friends ask me how to avoid Boeing planes, so I figured i'd make this to help out. Hope y'all find it useful :)

Can this somehow be made a filter option when booking a flight? Like in a browser extension?

Kayak.com added this because it is a meta-search, but they left it off their other direct booking sites (booking.com and priceline.com) I suspect due to liability reasons. This is why almost all car rental listings say "Honda Civic (or similar)" because the person taking your money does not control the car you end up with.

https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/what-is-the-bait...