No. I work for a travel company and not only does this not work but it is likely illegal under DOT in the US. Using a map to pick is cutesy but pointless as you might not even know where the hell you are going except by name or airport code. I admit picking flights is rarely much fun except at sites like Google and Hipmunk who do not book and are thus not limited by the DOT and a wall of lawyers. Also GDS systems (and those airlines that handle their own reservations) are slow as shit to do anything. Google manages to be fast because it caches heavily producing really stale pricing and availability which is not easy to overcome. You can have fast or you can have up to date but you can't have both. Plus you have all the issues that everyone in the industry hates everyone else and thus makes interoperability a pain in the ass.
Preference-based display of flights (I'm thinking).
Once upon a time, AA owned SABRE and all the flight information was in the one GDS (Global Distribution System). Then somebody at SABRE got the bright idea to preference the order so AA flights were always on the first page and all other airlines were on the second page. Most bookings were made from the first page.
This was then made illegal and they said some gobbledy-gook like: "you can't preference the display, you have to show a reasonable number of flights, all in the same format, and sorted by time, price or duration".
Or something. I can't find a reference to it, but it had to do with SABRE's virtual monopoly on global travel distribution (inventory, agents, etc) and regulation / de-regulation of the travel industry.
The DOT has tons of rules over how you show prices and other data about flights. They want the customer to know everything about what they are about to choose and make it difficult for anyone to sneak something in. Plus our lawyers are so scared of fines they go overboard to follow every exact rule. The DOT also loves to change the rules or their interpretation whenever they feel like it so it's a moving target. You can make it perfect then they change the rules and you get fined anyway. This means anyone who does booking is always on the lookout for potential fine issues and this makes innovation impossible. If you don't book the rules are not as bad.
For example if we fail to show that a flight on one carrier is operated by a different one (very common for some routes) they can fine us tens of thousands for each one we get wrong. A very strong incentive to be careful!
> Using a map to pick is cutesy but pointless as you might not even know where the hell you are going except by name or airport code
YES. Just trying to pick my time zone on the OS X Preference Pane is a exercise in frustration, I end up typing it in 70% of the time. I can't even imagine when you want to pick a specific airport on the other side of the planet.
I agree, but if this were for an airline as it proposes to be, at least they would presumably be able to access their own ticket prices quickly, or could upgrade their systems such that ticket prices can be available more quickly. Also, they show a map of Europe, so presumably U.S. Department of Transportation regulations wouldn't apply.
Ah, I've noticed that with Google. Very annoying when the price is wrong. Although it bothers me even more when I'm on a site like southwest and it makes me restart because a price has expired while I'm buying it.
