jfkraus

Hello Flyertalker(s),

We are doing a hackathon where a group of people get together to create a product in one day.

We want your input and ideas to help us shape our product and make it something that will benefit the customer. We are working on creating an airline specific app that will allow the user to swap seats on their current flight.

What if you booked your flight at the last minute and the flight was full and you were stuck with a middle seat in the back of the plane? What would you be willing to offer up to swap that seat for a window or isle seat? A free meal or drink?

Please provide us with your thoughts and feedback we will be updating our status throughout the day.

Thanks for your help!

pragakhan

While this may work for the leisure market, I don't think you would see much from people here as we are pretty set on our ways. The chances of me swapping someone for their .....y seat are an absolute zero no matter the reward.

But even in the leisure market when people don't travel that often I don't exactly know how well this would work. How would you account for equipment changes? What if I was delayed and missed my connection? The person who is now in my seat is going to have to argue with someone about swapping a seat they know nothing about.

All things to consider... Just read the seat swap or seat poached threads here.

jfkraus

Thank you for your comments! We will take a look at the seat swap threads.

milepig

and leisure travelers aren't going to download and use a seat swap app.

Ocn Vw 1K

Seat assignments are managed in an extremely dynamic environment, especially within an hour of departure.

Mentioned above were equipment substitutions. Add to that, weather and other factors causing misconnects or such things as cancellation of a later flight and you have a recipe for many spur-of-the-moment seat changes. Hope you're planning to build this on a supercomputer.

Paul56

The OP should have created a poll... would you swap seats?

My answer is... NO.

Those wanting to swap are looking for an upgrade.

I already have the upgrade you want... why would
I swap?

Venabili

Not to mention Op-ups for one of the swappers, a GA that politely asks and one of the swappers agrees to change seats to help a family, broken seats on the plane and so on and so on. Even random change of seats (BA even have a warning that in rare cases your seat can be changed until just before the flight)...

Trying to build an app that allows two users to swap something that they do not own will cause more issues than it will help. If you really want to swap - do it at the airport or in the plane (if someone is going to take your offer via an App, they will do it in real life as well).

jewels421

I'm someone who often has the more attractive seats on a plane, at least in economy, (because of my status and obsessing about seat assignments). I can't see being willing to swap an attractive economy seat for a drink or meal. Or even $50. On flights >1 hr, I would not give up an aisle seat in economy (or rather, it's not likely anyone would be willing to offer me the amount of $ it would take). Maybe I'd do aisle E+ for aisle E-. However.... If my status got me a complimentary upgrade on flight less than, say, 2 hours, I might be willing to trade my upgrade. Maybe. But if someone was willing to pay for that, wouldn't they just buy up to it at check-in? Unless they were put on the flight at the last minute... that's a pretty small market of customers, though.

I have been in some circumstances where I had less than optimal seats (e.g., flight cancelled, put on another one at the last minute). In that case, if I was in a middle E- seat I might be willing to pay something to someone willing to swap.

Also, others are right that logistically speaking, it doesn't really make sense to do any swapping until boarding has already begun.

milepig

This.

I've been known to pass up same day changes that would have gotten me home a couple hours earlier when the only option was a less desirable seat.

Q54701

I would swap my complementary first class upgrade for $50 in a heartbeat. I've done it many times for free for servicemen and women so it's no big deal, we all get there at the same time. Of course I have no clue what the tax implications and FF program rules would be on that

valdor

Maybe offer the option to add a gift card to the seat swap offer. I'm sure some people would take a middle seat if offered a 25$ or maybe 50$ Amazon gift card. The longer the flight, the higher the value of the offer would have to be.

nux

See also: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...hing-soon.html