Ready for Takeoff: Farecast Is Now Live Nationwide
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Written By Reprise Media | August 21, 2006 | Share This
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Farecast, the very buzzworthy beta site that predicts airline fares based on an algorithm that analyzes historical trends, has brought 55 new airports under its wing today, says Silicon Beat. Covering nearly all major US markets, Farecast’s predictive technology can now be used by flyers who favor airports like Los Angeles International, both Chicago airports and all three major hubs serving New York City.
The site previously dealt only with flights originating in Boston or its hometown, Seattle, but New Yorkers like us were champing at the bit to try it out for ourselves. Last week, when we asked Farecast’s Mike Fridgen, VP Marketing & Product, how soon they’d be rolling out our way, he played it close to the vest: “Our stated timeline for getting out to the rest of the country is by the end of the year.” So getting to play around on Farecast by the end of the month was a very pleasant surprise.
When we talked to Fridgen today, he told us that scaling the product out to 57 airports “wasn’t too difficult” compared to the challenge of making sure the predictive algorithm would work as well with so much more data. He told us that Farecast was about 75 percent accurate for its original Boston and Seattle flights, and that “accuracy for these new airports is very close to that. It’ll be interesting to see if our simulation” matches up with what consumers experience live on the site.
Farecast is also pretty excited about its new RSS feature, a nifty tool which allows users to keep track of price fluctuations for specific trips. Fore instance, if your search for “JFK to LAX” flights yields some steep fares today, you can subscribe to a feed that notifies you whenever the price goes up or down, and offers Farecast’s predictions as well.
For Farecast’s next major release (a ways down the flightpath), Fridgen hopes that users will get functionality that allows them to search all flights heading to or from a metropolitan area, accessing info from multiple nearby airports instead of just one at a time. In the meantime, we’re happy to input three or four different searches if it means getting the best deal.
Topics: Search: Vertical |