Jets - Flight & Seat Advisor - aircraft selection app
Promo site
The idea of the application arose a long time ago, I hatched it for more than a year, I started writing on my own, but there was no time and energy in the evenings. As a result, at some point, a team of 3 people gathered with burning eyes, left permanent work and seriously plunged into the project. A few days ago - launched in the Travel section.
In short - our application contains a large database of passenger airlines and their fleet. For each of the aircraft, we made detailed and very beautiful schemes of their salons, on which we show the location of classes, rows, partitions and other interiors, highlighting the “special” places with colors.
Each company buys a new aircraft at a factory with an almost empty cabin and already personally orders it for “tuning”, arranging chairs and toilet cubicles for their needs. Because of this, seats within the same class can vary greatly in terms of comfort. The first row of seats in front of the emergency exits has many times more legroom, and the last row in front of the toilets can have backrests blocked and people regularly crowding in line. Many aircraft have continuous sections in the hull and instead of a wonderful view of the burning engine, you can get on a blank wall. There are a lot of nuances and there is a certain probability of getting into a chair with a locked back, an electric box under your feet and a shelf for hand luggage occupied with life jackets. Such an 11 hour transatlantic flight will be remembered for a long time.
We collected cabin diagrams from different sources (sometimes even the owners' websites lie) and comments on seats for about 400 aircraft. Everything is beautifully structured, you can watch a selection of aircraft by carriers or vice versa, airlines having the aircraft of the desired type. (This can help, when the scheme specifically "your" company was not found in the application, to look like it happens with others.)
The base volume was originally planned to be larger, but we flew several times with the release dates, we will gradually replenish it in updates. For the 1.0.0 version, we drew Boeing 737 - 777 and Airbus A320 - A340; aircraft Avro, Canadair, Embraer, McDonnell Douglas are waiting in line. There are 80 companies in the list of airlines, but first of all we were guided by the world TOP-20, they are doing very well, while many low-cost airlines and Russian carriers do not yet. (Actually, only Aeroflot represents Russia so far).
The entire database is completely offline, no roaming is no obstacle for you to use it in the field. This is because many airlines, in addition to online booking, provide the opportunity to choose a place directly at the check-in at the airport, not everyone will be able to quickly find Wi-Fi in the queue before the gate.
In addition to the catalog, Jets has a remarkably stylized and animated online search for flights by their numbers. It is needed to find out the specific type of aircraft, if it is not indicated on your ticket. Several planes can be used on the same flight on different days, we also show this and let us choose a date. The disadvantages include the fact that operators provide information about their aircraft only 5-7 days before departure, when booking tickets a month before the trip - it is impossible to find out the model. The information provider is flightaware.com , we really liked the API they provide. So far, few calls are used from it, but we will gradually increase the weight of the “online” part of the application.
It's too early to talk about statistics, with a break we break into the top Travel section. There are a lot of plans for the development of the application, enough for a year in advance. We will be constantly updated, simultaneously increasing the volume of the database and detailing of schemes. There will be translations into other languages, Lite version, possibly with an In-App purchase. We’ll add a search by airport, any technical information and statistics on airplanes and air carriers (a bunch of paranoid people who are interested in the number of crashes have already accumulated), a user rating system for the boards and many, many other chips.
I will say right away that at this stage there is practically nothing for Russian users to offer, there are only three Aeroflot Airbus schemes. First of all, they aimed at the American market, although now it is clear from sales that they are only 40%, Europe also really likes it. I think a little later I will add some kind of analytics for promotion or a detailed story about the development process, we went over all possible rakes.
Thank you for reading. If interested, I’ll give out promotional codes.