A_Lee

Anyone know if ExpertFlyer used the same method for finding availability, or a similar method that might end up being dropped? Flight availability is the only real need I have in any of these sites, and after finding flightstats, realized I didn't need to pay for it. But I'd gladly pay for it that's the only option and if I'm guaranteed it'll stay around.

I tried to use the ITA Matrix, but it basically only returns ticketable results, with prices. In many cases I don't care one bit if something is ticketable, because I'm only interesting in searching one segment at a time with a particular booking class to only see if there's availability. But often the airline does not sell that booking class on just that one segment, but only as a complete itinerary. Trying to search for a complete itinerary though, with various different dates for each segment is a supreme pain. That's what I loved about flightstats - it would simply show all the booking classes and availability, allowing me to find the dates I wanted, and then when done book the ticket with the airline or some online site.

Calchas

ExpertFlyer pulls availability out of the Global Distribution Systems (GDSes), where the airlines publish their availability for travel agents in the first place.

Presumably flightstats.com didn't want to keep paying for the subscription to the GDS feed.

ExpertFlyer Voice

That is correct. ExpertFlyer.com legitimately contracts and pays for our data, including Flight Availability, and is not and would not affected by the decisions of any other website. New users are welcome to try a 5-day free trial of our Premium service.

A_Lee

Thanks, EF. If I don't find anything else that replaces flightstats.com, I'll likely be buying a subscription to your service. Any chance of a discount for FT members or those of us who were using flightstats and now can't?

ExpertFlyer Voice

ExpertFlyer does offer a discount on our Yearly Premium service as you get 12 months for the price of 10 at the monthly rate.

A_Lee

In case anyone is interested, I found this link:
http://www.sabretravelnetwork.com/ho...elector/remote
Sabre offers a service that allows a single individual to access the Sabre GDS for $45 / month, which looks like it allows access to availability information. Obviously $45 / month is a pretty hefty fee compared to other services like EF, and I'm not about to waste that kind of money when EF is available. I just found it interesting, being I knew very little about all this before this event. I have no idea about the information provided there, if that's complete and what flightstats was using, or if they accessed the information in a different manner.

SK AAR

This may be the wrong forum, but I will take the chance...

Until a few days ago I was able to check flight/booking class availability on Flightstats.com. A very useful/handy tool and I used it a lot. But now "flight availability" is no longer is an option/available under the "flight" drop down menu. Did I miss something/what happend?

PS. Please don't reply that paying for Expertflyer is an option; I'm fully aware of that....

Red BP

unfortunately FlightStats pulled this tool from their website
Reason being they are funding their website and tools with advertisting.
It appears their paying advertising customers value more their new mobile app enhancements, and finally the great availability tool was now sacrificed.
To me the whole FlightStats website has now become useless and I am back to the level of the 90s with simple F/C/Y yes/no availability queries without fare bucket counters.

I found that the fare bucket counters have been the only reasonable indication how full a flight actually looks like and you could determine your options from there in terms which flights to pick, or determine chances for upgrades, etc.

I have no idea what other tool might still do the same job, I am not going to get a paid subscription for KVS or EF. In fact those tools might also become affected by the FlightStats tool removal.

Air Rarotonga

see here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ilability.html

nux

It is likely that FlightStats has simply not renewed or stopped paying for GDS access. KVS and EF passes this cost on to members through subscription fees, so I don't think there is any chance they will stop.

CDKing

KVS was screen scraping (is that the proper term?) Flightstats for availablity so when ot was taken down KVS stopped working. KVS did switch its data source but its more limited in the number of booking codes you can look at one time

EF actually pays the GDS so it still works with EF. Well except delta which pulled its information from several sources.

BRAISKI

This is too bad, I assume some companies complained since it was "free" and other companies that have this info are charging a premium.

Calchas

Complained to whom?

I think it is more likely that flightstats.com decided it was not a profitable activity.

intuition

Yes, official answer from flightstats.com isEither we the customers have demanded the function to be removed, or we have not demanded it enough to make it profitable via ads.

sbm12

Or too many users were accessing the data through other means which blocked the ads such that it was no longer commercially viable.