Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FlightCaster (YC S09) Takes Off With $1.3 Million In Funding And A New API

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 32 posts

Re: FlightCaster (YC S09) Takes Off With $1.3 Million In Funding And A New API

#21

Post by simonk »

amichail wrote: post #7

Flightcaster manages to predict ten times as many delays as the airlines do. What does this mean? Do the airlines know about the potential delays but are unwilling to tell the public in most cases? If Flightcaster really does have better tech than the airlines, then their major customers should be the airlines.

Flightcaster is all about the probability of being delayed though. The big customer is business users who will rebook on a flight that has less of a chance of delay. Airlines don't want that.

Re: FlightCaster (YC S09) Takes Off With $1.3 Million In Funding And A New API

#23

Post by jacquesm »

developer123 wrote: post #13
JimmyL wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on who "you" are in this example. If you're someone who is flying for personal reasons or non-mission critical business reasons, then you're 100% right - knowing ahead you'll probably be late is interesting, but not enough to do anything about since you don't want to pay change/cancellation fees. I'm this guy when I travel for personal reasons. But I also travel a lot for business, and when I do, travel is…

Previous comments from JimmyL : "I work in a moderately-progressive workplace, and if I ever need to seek the input of a supervisor on a big issue/something that may come back to haunt me, I'll talk to them about it, and then send them an email saying what we decided. This makes it clear what the decisions was (and more importantly, how I interpret it) and provides documentation to both sides that the issue was discu…

If you join a place like this and start making statements throwing suspicion on the claims people make it would be nice if you did your homework.

Re: FlightCaster (YC S09) Takes Off With $1.3 Million In Funding And A New API

#24

Post by wallflower »

jacquesm wrote: post #23
developer123 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Previous comments from JimmyL : "I work in a moderately-progressive workplace, and if I ever need to seek the input of a supervisor on a big issue/something that may come back to haunt me, I'll talk to them about it, and then send them an email saying what we decided. This makes it clear what the decisions was (and more importantly, how I interpret it) and provides documentation to both sides that the issue was discu…

If you join a place like this and start making statements throwing suspicion on the claims people make it would be nice if you did your homework.

> If I don't show up when I am scheduled to, there will often be several thousand people - not to mention three national news networks - waiting for me and my traveling party. Those people won't wait around, and will embarrass me and my people on a national stage.

In partial defense of developer123 (partial because developer123 was created just yesterday to comment), I had to read back 156 days (and approximately that many comments) to find any substantiating evidence in JimmyL's historical comment stream that confirmed his seemingly ostentatious claims.

Up until that solitary (1/150+) comment, I thought I was right that the claims were suspicious.

All his historical comments pointed to a smart, opinionated, passionate, ambitious engineer (who did not seem to have the jet-setting job he talked about).

For example (130 days ago): "As a developer, I consider myself a "professional", and my life is fine with 6bit color. My roommate is a screenwriting "professional" and they're fine with 6bit color."

So I commented as such and resumed digging at T minus 130 only when I saw JimmyL's reply.

Can't really use searchyc.com for this (what keywords?).

He has posted many comments.

http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=JimmyL

Re: FlightCaster (YC S09) Takes Off With $1.3 Million In Funding And A New API

#25

Post by NikkiA »

amichail wrote: post #7

Flightcaster manages to predict ten times as many delays as the airlines do. What does this mean? Do the airlines know about the potential delays but are unwilling to tell the public in most cases? If Flightcaster really does have better tech than the airlines, then their major customers should be the airlines.

Also, what's their rate on false positives?

False positives are a killer to the airlines - they don't want to risk losing customers to another flight/airline when there will actually be no delay.

To customers, false positives are likely to be a minor issue though, probably the number of true positives will outweigh occasional false positives.

But without a false positive rate near 0, I can't imagine the airlines themselves being too interested in flightcaster's predictions.

Re: FlightCaster (YC S09) Takes Off With $1.3 Million In Funding And A New API

#26

Post by alaskamiller »

amichail wrote: post #7

Flightcaster manages to predict ten times as many delays as the airlines do. What does this mean? Do the airlines know about the potential delays but are unwilling to tell the public in most cases? If Flightcaster really does have better tech than the airlines, then their major customers should be the airlines.

Yes.

There's a few metrics the airlines care about, the most important is leaving the gate on time. But once you're on the plane they can make you sit there for however long it is to sit on the tarmac.

When I was flying constantly for a month, almost all my flights were on time. FlightCaster did predict 2 flights that were to be delayed despite the planes pushing off on time. We just sat on the tarmac, upwards of an hour, before finally taking off.

By the same token, FlightCaster didn't predict the three other flights I was on that was delayed.

Either way, the use case is kind of limited. Even if the prediction is true and given enough warning ahead of time I have no means, and in most cases no need, to switch flights. For business travelers that have the expense accounts to make this work, this is a great tool.

Re: FlightCaster (YC S09) Takes Off With $1.3 Million In Funding And A New API

#28

Post by developer123 »

wallflower wrote: post #24
jacquesm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you join a place like this and start making statements throwing suspicion on the claims people make it would be nice if you did your homework.

> If I don't show up when I am scheduled to, there will often be several thousand people - not to mention three national news networks - waiting for me and my traveling party. Those people won't wait around, and will embarrass me and my people on a national stage. In partial defense of developer123 (partial because developer123 was created just yesterday to comment), I had to read back 156 days (and approximately tha…

Thanks Wallflower, yes I was hesitant about making that comment - I did research previous comments but not as far back as you did - I do think it's important to question authenticity of a comment esp. when it's a PRETAY big claim like above. If it's true - good luck to JimmeyL - if it's not he still seems to add a lot of value here with his comments.

Re: FlightCaster (YC S09) Takes Off With $1.3 Million In Funding And A New API

#29

Post by malbiniak »

dmix wrote: post #2

Congrats, the b2b partnerships sounds like a solid business model. Plus it'd be easier to charge a frequently travelling exec for the service then the average consumer. Hopefully the service can expand outside of the US. I see the limited/varied data of each country as the biggest technical hurdle they'll have to overcome.

I'm a frequent business traveler, but I don't see being able to expense flight change based on predictive analysis.

Is there anyone within the travel industry that can speak to the market demand for this? Does this cost the airlines $x/year, or booking services?

Re: FlightCaster (YC S09) Takes Off With $1.3 Million In Funding And A New API

#30

Post by wallflower »

developer123 wrote: post #28
wallflower wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I don't show up when I am scheduled to, there will often be several thousand people - not to mention three national news networks - waiting for me and my traveling party. Those people won't wait around, and will embarrass me and my people on a national stage. In partial defense of developer123 (partial because developer123 was created just yesterday to comment), I had to read back 156 days (and approximately tha…

Thanks Wallflower, yes I was hesitant about making that comment - I did research previous comments but not as far back as you did - I do think it's important to question authenticity of a comment esp. when it's a PRETAY big claim like above. If it's true - good luck to JimmeyL - if it's not he still seems to add a lot of value here with his comments.

I believe he has the position that he implied. However the tone of his message invited the find-fault investigation. It was a nice scavenger hunt. You were brave to confront his seemingly many-standard-deviations-removed-from-his-NewsYC-composite-comment-profile.
Post reply on HN