reft

I'm not sure if this is an idea worth doing, but it is worth having a discussion about.

I see benefits of a forum for sharing brief, time sensitive observations by FT members on the ground, about airlines, airport activity, activity by organizations at the airports, IROPS and ground traffic into the airport. The meat of the message would be in the thread subject (examples below)

The main benefit to the FT community would be to provide quick access to timely information necessary for the traveler so plans can be adjusted as needed. I'm not sure if there is an unmet demonstrated need here, hence the request for discussion, rather than an outright proposal for a forum.

Forum guidelines would support:
Message fits in Subject Line, no body text. A brevity style exists already in Coupon Connection; the style here would be similar in that you don't need to look at the actual message to get the information you need.
Observations reported should be the unexpected, even if it's unexpectedly positive. Information not available from official channels (or when official channels are reporting stale data.) would be the main focus here.

Examples one-liners:

DFW Ground stop due to hail storm 1pm
DFW Ground stop ended 4pm
AA@SFO: All carry-on bags going through size checker today
TSA@EWR: Terminal X Dumped at 10am; reentry lines out the door, 2+ hrs
TSA@JFK: Terminal X wait times well under 5 minutes at 10am.
UA999@ORD: Delayed, MX issue, Cracked Windshield

If each of these is a one message thread a quick look at the forum front page should provide an idea if things are running smoothly in Airworld today.

At this time, there are some operations reports in the appropriate airline or geographic based forums, but these existing threads can get lost among the others. Within a thread, the topic discussion may continue past the original event or go off topic. A traveler may who frequents the UA forum, may miss a relevant airport-wide event posted in the AA forum. Discussions can still be started in a forum more appropriate for an extended discourse, but most threads here would one-time events, of interest for only a limited time.

A dedicated forum where the thread subject is the message might have a lot of threads of interest to few, but this would be offset by the brevity.

Would twitter be better for this? I can see more problems than solutions doing it via twitter.

lin821

IIRC, there were airport fora before my time:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/talkb...rt-forums.html

And now maybe not as timely, but in principle discussion on airports go to their designated destination forums.

reft

I did run across that in my research before posting. Since it's been a while, it also might be worth raising again.

As you say, not timely. I'd like to go to one web page and find out if my day is going to be screwed up. Discussion can and would still take place there, this forum would be more for information which is ephemeral rather than that which may have value for a long period of time.

I'm thinking more of the flight board in the airport. You're looking for your flight, but you see a summary of other information on there at the same time. It's brief, you can get what you want w/o much effort to filter out the unnecessary.

goalie

reft-

I like the idea a lot ^ but it might not work the way you describe as I fear that their might not be a large enough audience to view "airport forums" but maybe a sticky in each airline forum where posts would follow something similar to what you described

Yes there would/might be multiple posts in multiple forums (i.e. both UA and AA would have "Ground Stop ORD..." and etc) but it also might/could work where for example "UA-SFO-T1 Terminal Dump, other terminals not affected", "UA-SFO Elite Security Backed Up, Use International Terminal, minimal wait" and etc.

Yes, there are logistical issues at both large and small airports both domestic and international and I think (tho not sure) there might need to be moderator input but imho, i think this could work.

JDiver

Just a point to consider: when I am about to travel I generally check weather, flight info from the appropriate airline(s), have auto messages sent to me in case of changes, look at my itinerary manager (in this case TripItPro), Flight Aware / Stats and other tools, and do several things before checking FlyerTalk for irrops or weather-related issues. It's IMO not reliable enough nor in real time, whereas some of what I use is practically that.

Airline and destination-specific information is pretty much already taken care of in existing fora, IMO (e.g. strict carry-on baggage measurements at SFO for AA flyers).

Just my opinion as a longtime member and frequent flyer / traveler; more food for thought.

tcook052

Sorry but I wouldn't want to see FT ever trying to replace more accurate and time senstive online tools that already exist as that's not it's central mission not IMHO should it be.

reft

No sorry needed - this is not a perfect idea, but maybe it can make what we have, better.

I can't see FT replacing the tools that are more accurate and time sensitive either, nor should the output from those tools be simply copied to FT, but there are holes in those tools. At last look, the TSA stopped reporting expected wait times. Airlines/Airports do not always make all information useful to the traveler available to the public; they not going to tell you the club in concourse X is temporary closed due to a plumbing disaster, at least not until you get to the door; or that a procedure usually not followed, is suddenly being followed today, and having an detrimental impact. These gaps can be filled in by FTers making direct observations. (I know I used a ground stop an example in the original message. It would be appropriate if the official sources hadn't announced it yet, but not if they had.)

Me too.

Not exactly sure which you mean by "reliable enough": FT or some of the tools. I can see both not being perfect.

tcook052

I understand what you're saying but there's a difference to me between making what you have better and trying to make what you have into something else it wasn't really intended for.

Making what you have better is like adding new tires to your VW; making it into something it wasn't really intended for is like adding drag racing slicks.

FT has many forums that talk at length about travel already and to create another that is both highly subjective with personal observations and highly time sensitive is not needed but again that's only MHO.

jackal

The idea intrigues me.

Implementation may be a challenge, but let's not shut this down yet.

OP: when you say you can see more problems than solutions with Twitter, what do you mean by that?

SkiAdcock

Speaking as a regular person I can't see myself going to FT to a forum to check on a situation at the airport, presuming I can access i-net in the first place*.

My first avenue is going to be the other ones mentioned already & then maybe - if I can get on to FT - I'd go to FT.

* While we have a lot of techies that are part of FT/wired into everything, I think they assume the rest of FT is as wired in as they are & that's not actually the case IMO. I know this is weird, but I might actually be the norm (ie, lackidasical wired in if at all) & not the exception.

I like the idea of this, but at this point don't think it's that feasible or going to garner enough support to make it a viable forum.

I am, however, open to the idea so if others can flesh it out I'm willing to listen.

PS - I don't do Twitter or Facebook.

Cheers.

oliver2002

There are a few who use a syndicated data feed to warn of occurences at airports, and then either publish it (flightstats delay index) or tweet about it (eg Orbitz: https://twitter.com/#!/orbitz ) With all due respect to the 398458 registered members of FT, we can't provide that quality of data. IB/FT could subscribe to the datafeed and publish it in a thread though... hint hint?

reft

I agree data integrity is an issue, especially when joindate=$today, postcount=1 and user=$troll. User handles do have implied reputations here. As the saying goes, "consider the source."

There's always more than one way to do it, but a few of my thoughts ran:From those thoughts, I saw FT as a better way than twitter, because everyone has an individual logon here, but there is central control and coordination: Most FT users follow forum specific rules and norms, there are mods present to nudge things back in line when needed, and the community is already here. If the forum software supported subject-line RSS feeds today or future, even easier to get the information, but I wasn't depending on that feature being available.

The underlying problem here is even more global than FT: taking useful crowd-sourced information and presenting in a form that everyone can easily use.

Within IB, and FT, but slightly outside the scope of forums, could be some sort of screen on the FT app for this information, both reporting and viewing. This may also fall into IB's social networking plan for FT. The app would probably have to support mobile and laptop platforms.

oliver2002

Another negative for twitter is that such feeds get boring. I have unlisted from flightstats and considering orbitz, because minute by minute update which airport is currently not performing crowds your feed and you normally don't travel to all the sites.... http://boarding.fr/ started a nice service that relies on you adding the #boarding hast tag and some data and bingo, you can find a fellow traveller in an airport plus tweet airtraffic situations you see. Funky at start, then becomes <yawn> after a while.