4 ms·
The company mentioned in the article as the provider of this technology, Volantio, is the entity that was previously called Adioso, which was in YC in 2009. Som
by tomhoward 9y ago
The company mentioned in the article as the provider of this technology, Volantio, is the entity that was previously called Adioso, which was in YC in 2009. Some HN readers may remember some blog posts I wrote a few years ago about the struggles we went through.
If you ever wondered what happened to Adioso, well, here's part of the answer. The company took the insights and technology assets it had developed for the consumer market and turned them into enterprise services to offer to airlines, and that has been the focus for the past 3-4 years.
As evidenced by this breakthrough, it has turned out to be a very good move.
The original Adioso product still exists but in a different entity, and its current status is best described as side-project. I'm still optimistic that the original vision we had for Adioso as a consumer product will be realised, but it will end up looking very different to what it's been to date.
In the meantime, it's extremely pleasing to see Volantio making such an impact.
- thomasahle 9y agoGiven you know the market well, how would you find a cheap destination given two different places of departure? For example, you live in country A and your special someone lives in country B, and you want to list countries C and airports in order of smallest sum of two return tickets. Is there an api that flight search websites use, which you can get access to? Or are there already websites offering such a feature?
- robjan 9y agoThe closest to an API which aggregates all flights is a Global Distribution System (GDS), of which there are three in common use. Airlines publish their inventory on the GDS and travel agents book through them. There are some exceptions. GDS cost money so budget airlines usually don't bother with them. In that case, they may publish an API which agents may consume, or the agent may screen scrape them.
- jlangenauer 9y agoStrangely enough, I was just talking to someone here in Berlin last night about Adioso, and was wondering what happened to it. Good to see you guys still going, albeit in a new form.
- dmbaggett 9y agoVery cool! We did some possibly relevant stuff at ITA way back in the day -- ping me. :)
- jorvi 9y agoAdioso is amazing! Lots of people cite SkyScanner as their favorite site to search for flights, but you guys really take the pain out booking, since you optimize for price, hops, layover time, etc. Thanks :)