What a week at Freebird! We closed $5 million in funding, signed six more Travel Management Companies as partners, and celebrated some awesome media coverage across the travel industry (like Skift and Tnooz) and with local Boston media (like BostInno and Xconomy).

But not everything was fun and games. My hotel room keylock stopped functioning right as our big announcement hit the wires. It took maintenance two hours to drill/hammer/crowbar the keylock off the door to get me back in the room and my laptop. You can’t make this stuff up :)

All said, it’s been a pretty satisfying and humbling few days. Freebird is only two years old, but the team has accomplished so much. Here are the numbers:

• 8 large agencies have recently signed as partner resellers, representing over $6 billion in annual travel spend for their respective corporate clients. Just the tip of the iceberg in terms of addressable market for us.
• 2 world-class VCs (with deep experience in travel) believe in us and have led a $5M investment. This is actually the second investment they’ve led for Freebird — their total investment in Freebird now totals $8.5M. Thank you to Joel at General Catalyst and Jeff at Accomplice for your continued support.
• 4 exceptional travel industry advisors continue to provide insights, connections, and support. A sincere thank you to Ellen, Kurt, Mitch and Scott for helping get us this far.
• 12 full-time employees and growing. We’re going to be hiring aggressively — check out our current job postings. It’s truly a privilege to work with such an incredible team — and an incredible co-founder, Sam Zimmerman.

Next week, I’ll be attending the ACTE corporate travel conference in New York City, talking with corporate travel managers and agencies about Freebird. If you’ll also be there, drop me a line and let’s schedule a time to meet up.

For more details, check out our website and newsroom.

Congrats to the entire Freebird team! More fun times ahead!

Best,
Ethan

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While each year has its own particular challenges and adventures, a few clear historical patterns have emerged during the winter holiday travel season (December 21 — January 3). We examined US Bureau of Travel Statistics data from December/January 2003–04 through December/January 2015–16, and here’s what we found:

Flight cancellations: brace for the worst

• Each year, more than 1 million people experience a flight cancellation.
• Each year, more flights are cancelled on December 26 than any other day during the holiday travel season, followed closely by December 27.

Flight delays: prepare to be patient

• Each year, nearly 1 in every 5 flights is delayed by 30+ minutes.
• Last winter (2015–2016), nearly 1 in 25 flights was delayed by 4+ hours.
• Each year, more flights are delayed by 4+ hours on December 23 than any other day during the holiday travel season — nearly twice as many as the next-highest day (December 21)!

Whether to worry about weather

• Our historical data for the past decade also shows that weather in the departure city — not the arrival city — is most likely to impact flight disruptions. So if it’s snowing at Grandma’s, more often than not you’ll be better off than if it’s snowing at your airport.

While these insights may not be able to save you — knowledge is power. Understanding risks allows you to be better prepared and to take action should any issues arise.

If you’re concerned about your flight, you could also consider purchasing Freebird before your trip. We are available up until two days before departure, so there may still be time. Freebird empowers travelers to skip the line and book a new ticket instantly after a disruption — on any airline, at no extra cost, with just three taps on your phone.

Take that, Scrooge.

According to AAA, 2016 will be the busiest Thanksgiving holiday travel season since 2007, with an anticipated 3.6 million Americans taking to the skies to reach their destinations. But with the excitement comes some concern: as many of us know, there’s nothing worse than arriving at the airport, only to find your flight delayed or cancelled. (Personally, I’d do just about anything to get to my aunt’s turkey and homemade applesauce.)

Luckily, this season, travelers can be better prepared for the unexpected — by leveraging data to stay in-the-know and in control.

Spoiler alert: it’s about much more than avoiding “busy travel days” at the airport — the trick is knowing what to look for.

At Freebird, we use predictive analytics to determine the risk of a flight cancellation, significant delay, or missed connection by capturing and analyzing terabytes upon terabytes of real-time (and historical) data related to weather, flights, airlines and airports. We connect the dots between these disparate sources of data so that travelers don’t need to manually check them in real-time, and generate two key outputs to help our travelers fly smarter: (1) a risk assessment for each individual flight, and (2) insights into larger trends that others don’t see.

So what do we know about Thanksgiving travel?

Using a combination of data sources, including the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, we analyzed 12 years’ worth of data (2004–2015) for the Thanksgiving travel season (the Friday prior to Thanksgiving, through the Monday after the holiday). Going beyond superficial observations like “avoid busy travel days,” here’s what you need to know:

1. Every year during the Thanksgiving travel season:

• Nearly 255,000 travelers experience a flight cancellation,
• Flight delays cause more than 5 million hours in lost time for travelers, and
• Nearly 1 in every 8 flights experience at least a 30-minute delay.

2. There are clear patterns when it comes to the riskiest days for flight delays or cancellations:

When planning travel, most people are wary of “the busiest travel days” — and understandably so, given security lines and crowds. Wednesday is the busiest travel day before Thanksgiving, but not necessarily the most risky. The worst days for travel disruptions are:

• Monday is the most likely day for a flight to be cancelled — 17% of all cancellations during the Thanksgiving travel season happen on the Monday of Thanksgiving week.
• Wednesday is the most likely day for a flight to be significantly delayed — 17% of all delays lasting 4+ hours happen on Wednesday.
• Across all travel days during this period, flights departing between 6 and 7 a.m. are the most frequently cancelled; the second-most-likely hour for flight cancellations is between 4 and 5 p.m.

The takeaway here is that airlines are far less likely to cancel a flight entirely on the day before Thanksgiving (Wednesday) — their goal is to get people home for the holiday! — but that may make them more likely to delay it, if there is an issue. Another important tip is don’t take an early morning flight if you’re worried about flight cancellations.

3. Be a smarter weather-watcher:

While it’s true that no one can control or avoid sudden bouts of bad weather (last year, the first major snowfall of 2015 blasted the Midwest on the Friday and Saturday before Thanksgiving, resulting in 1,173 cancelled flights out of Chicago and other airports across the region), our predictive analytics identified two interesting and helpful weather-related trends. People often fret about bad weather affecting landing conditions at their destination airports, but in fact:

• Weather at the departure airport has a greater impact on flight delays and cancellations than weather at the arrival airport, and
• Cross-country flights with bad weather at the departure airport are at highest risk for delay or cancellation.

With that in mind, if you’re flying out of Syracuse, NY, Denver, CO, or Minneapolis, MN this week (Thanksgiving 2016) — cities whose forecasts call for snow and/or ice — be prepared for possible delays, especially if you are headed for a long-distance destination.

Whatever your plans, we wish you safe and easy travels this Thanksgiving and holiday season! And no matter what happens while you’re traveling, we hope the food, family and friends at the other end of your journey make it all worthwhile. If you need to find me, I’ll be helping myself to a second serving of my aunt’s homemade applesauce.

# # #

Industry experts are finally beginning to take an honest look at the true cost of flight disruptions — which extend far beyond just the misery faced by travelers.

The financial impact of disruptions is staggering — $60 billion per year, or 8% of total airline revenue — as estimated in a new white paper released this week by T2RL and Amadeus. Although the authors suggest the renewed “boardroom interest” among airlines is prompted by rising passenger numbers and the growing publicity around technology incidents, we believe their focus on disruptions is also financially motivated — and rightly so!

As a first step, airlines are beginning to speak more openly about the challenges of operating within an imperfect technology system. Last month, a trade conference panel discussion featured the CEOs of Hawaiian Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and Alaska Airlines discussing the realities of flight disruptions. While acknowledging that airlines can do more to invest in modernizing their computerized systems, they also pointed out that “coming back online” for airlines means more than just getting a technology platform up and running again — it involves recovering from a ripple effect that touches multiple flights, and accounting for passenger and crew safety.

Balancing the realities and limitations of the current system during a flight disruption is a challenge, both operationally and financially, for airlines, agents, and travelers.

At Freebird, our goal is to improve the travel experience for everyone, from the traveler to the airline to the agents. We leverage technology with two goals in mind: (1) to solve shortcomings of our current system, and (2) to empower travelers and business partners to make informed decisions using real-time predictive analytics — which we call Freebird Travel Intelligence.

We believe making information more readily accessible — and providing a simple rebooking tool that empowers travelers during a disruption — will help improve efficiencies and satisfaction for everyone throughout the travel ecosystem.

If you’re a TMC or travel manager, we’d be happy to share the ways we can help in more detail. You can reach me at ethan@getfreebird.com.

# # #

October is upon us — and believe it or not, that means wedding season.

According to TheKnot.com, in 2015, more couples chose to wed in the fall (39%) than in the summer (33%), with October ranking as the most popular month of the year to get married (17%).

And, on top of the shift in the season — and therefore, the weather — it turns out that more and more couples are getting married far from home. Nearly half (49%) of couples in 2015 got married 200 miles or more from where they lived at the time they were married. That’s more than than twice the number from the previous year (21%).

All this means that friends and family are getting on airplanes much more frequently than they were just a year and a half ago in order to join the festivities — and, they’re dealing with fall weather patterns that may interfere with travel, too.

With this in mind, we at Freebird wanted to do something to support brides, grooms, wedding planners and, of course, their guests, to help take the stress out of wedding planning and travel.

That’s why we’re offering Freebird coverage for free to anyone flying to a wedding in the US.

Simply visit www.getfreebird.com/weddings and create your own, free promo code. Then it’s just a few easy steps:

1. Share your free Freebird promo code with your wedding guests. (Our site will even create an email, tweet or Facebook message for you to send directly to your guest list.)
2. Don’t worry about flight delays or cancellations on your big day. Your guests can sign up for Freebird coverage, for free, any time until two days before departure by visiting www.getfreebird.com and using your promo code.
3. Let Freebird save the day. In the case of a flight disruption, Freebird gets your wedding guests on the next flight on any airline, for free!

The idea is simple — let us do the worrying about air travel “what ifs” for you!

As frequent travelers ourselves, the Freebird team knows just how stressful it can be to face a disruption on your way to a once-in-a-lifetime event. (Our very own CTO just experienced a flight cancellation on his way to a wedding last week!) And while all travel is important — there are people to see, goals to accomplish and schedules to keep, no matter the occasion — there’s something inherently special about traveling to a wedding.

Getting there matters — and our mission is to make sure you do.

So if you or anyone you know is tying the knot this fall, check out www.getfreebird.com/weddings to sign up for our “wedding gift” to you and loved ones. On behalf of everyone at Freebird, I hope you’ll accept our warmest congratulations and best wishes for a wonderful celebration — and beyond.

A good partner makes it easy for you to be your best — and empowers you to make your best even better.

At Freebird, being a good partner is at the core of what we do. Our mission is to make the travel experience better for everyone involved — from travelers to travel agents, and from airlines to corporate travel programs. That’s why I’m incredibly excited about our newest offering for partners.

Last week, we rolled out a suite of Freebird APIs* — a digital toolbox that enables us to partner seamlessly with a variety of different travel companies.

Using their existing platforms, partners can now augment their current offerings while improving customer experience. Our APIs can help provide a better experience for travelers, more leverage for travel agents and the travel agencies they work for, and better outcomes for corporations and corporate travel managers. All partners need to do is plug the Freebird API into their website or software. Our current API offering includes:

• Travel Intelligence — Predictive flight analytics that factor in hundreds of airport, airline and weather signals in real-time;
• Disruption Alerts — Triggered messages and data feeds related to predicted and announced flight disruptions, such as significant delays, missed connections, and flight cancellations; and
• Flight Rebooking — Streamlined rebooking services that help get travelers where they need to be.

When partners are able to choose the solution that best meets their needs, good things happen.

To that end, the Freebird API’s flexible scope and customizable options help us achieve meaningful integration with little-to-no development time required — or, we can efficiently facilitate a more comprehensive implementation with more robust benefits. For example:

• A travel agency can save precious time for its agents by incorporating the Freebird purchasing API into their website (rather than manually typing customer information), allowing travelers to purchase Freebird coverage as part of their standard booking process.
• Similarly, a travel agency can leverage Freebird’s predictive analytics via our flight disruption API to automatically alert its agents of a potential delay or cancellation before it happens, enabling them (and their travelers) to consider alternate plans ahead of time.

Freebird harnesses technology to make travel simpler and more enjoyable, providing better information and tools to travelers and travel agents alike. We’re excited to extend this new API offering to our business partners, to help them make their best even better.

Together, we can improve the travel experience for everyone.

*API stands for “Application Program Interface;” a set of protocols that specify how software components should interact.

# # #

Travel is better with loved ones at your side.

But if you encounter a flight disruption, having multiple people in your group can increase the complications exponentially. For groups of two or more, flight cancellations, delays and missed connections issues can ruin, or even end, the entire trip. When you’ve got somewhere important to be, you need your entire party to get there — on time, and together.

That’s why we are so excited about our latest Freebird feature, which allows groups to travel with Freebird protection for their entire party. Now, Freebird can be purchased for multiple travelers at once, and — more importantly — our rebooking experience is just as simple, seamless and intuitive for a group as it is for a solo traveler.

Whether you’re headed to a bachelorette party in Vegas, a cruise in Alaska, a family reunion in Atlanta or a major business meeting in Chicago, we understand the “multiple traveler dilemma” intimately. (In fact, a group travel snafu sparked the idea for Freebird in the first place!) It’s also one of the most frequent questions and requests we hear from our customers.

With that feedback in mind, we’ve invested heavily over the past few months to roll out this feature and empower groups to have a better travel experience. As a company dedicated to reimagining and improving air travel for everyone, our driving passion is to make complex problems easy for our travelers to manage. With Freebird involved, your group can get back to focusing on enjoying the destination, rather than stressing about the journey.

Ethan
CEO | Freebird
www.getfreebird.com

Air travel is, by its very nature, uncertain — something we’ve already seen this summer travel season, with two system-wide cancellations on Southwest and Delta. Whether you’re an experienced road warrior, or heading off to your once-a-year vacation, we all accept some level of risk — and give up some level of control — each and every time we plan a flight and purchase a ticket.

But while most people know (and dread) the common demons of air travel, from unpredictable weather to a mechanical failure, it’s sudden airline technology issues like these that really throw travelers for a loop.

So what can you do if you’re facing a technology-related disruption — or you’re concerned that your upcoming flight might be affected?

Here are our three best tips to help you tackle technology-based woes — because getting there matters!

1. Don’t Avoid The Airport

Technology-based delays (and reports of potential airport mayhem) can be discouraging — but flights may still depart at the scheduled time! Don’t wait it out at home. To keep up-to-date, watch for updates from the airline across multiple channels — email, text, phone and online flight status. Be aware that updates can change quickly.

2. Maximize Your Flexibility

The airline will do its utmost to help travelers, but if your situation is dire, you may want to take matters into your own hands and purchase a new flight. If you think you might need this option in order to reach your destination on time, set yourself up for the best chance of success by (1) avoiding checked bags, so you and your luggage can travel and arrive together, and (2) if you are traveling on the outbound flight of a round-trip, contact your original airline to ensure they don’t cancel your return flight — a “no show” on the outbound leg can sometimes trigger a cancellation of the entire round-trip ticket.

3. Move Quickly

During a technology-based disruption, you may want to find a new flight on another airline, in order to side-step the technology glitch altogether. If so, keep in mind it’s important to move quickly, because fewer airplanes in the sky means fewer seats available for passengers. If there are any potential issues, get in the customer service line at the airport AND call the airline, giving yourself both options.

This is also where Freebird comes in: we help our customers book new tickets, on any airline — instantly and for free — when their flights are cancelled, delayed by 4+ hours, or if a connection is missed.

With all the uncertainty that comes with air travel, it helps to know your options ahead of time and plan in advance for the unexpected. At Freebird, our mission is to make sure that when unforeseen events throw a wrench in your itinerary — no matter the cause or extent — you are in control and empowered to reach your destination, and the people, places and events that matter most to you.

One year ago today, I stood helpless in an airport.

People were frantic. Strangers waited impatiently in line, jostling for position. Desperate for help or any type of service, cell phones were pressed to faces, but no one was talking. Every so often the faint sound of hold music could be heard. I watched as my friends struggled to rebook their flights home, with limited success. Airplanes were taking off from Denver and landing in Boston without issue, which caused more confusion among the stranded passengers. It was clear that the customer experience was leaving much to be desired — and so I began to imagine what “better” might look like.

One year ago today, the idea of Freebird was born.

Since then, through winter storms and multiple airport shutdowns, Freebird has been unwavering in its mission to empower travelers — and we’ve been overwhelmed by the positive customer response. In tweets and emails, customers call Freebird the “best service ever” or their “superhero.” I’m proud to say we have a 100% customer success rate, despite some pretty challenging circumstances along the way. It is an amazing feeling when travelers are able to get to the people and places that matter most, even when the cards are stacked against them.

As I look to the future, we have lofty ambitions and a clear mission. Armed with an absolutely world-class team and a healthy bank account, I couldn’t be more optimistic about what’s to come. We’re excited to empower people to have better travel experiences.

Power to the traveler!

Ethan
CEO | Freebird
www.getfreebird.com

When I tell the story of Freebird, people often ask me how I developed conviction around the idea so quickly — after only a few months, I dropped out of Harvard Business School to build it. I’ll admit, it was fast. However the answer to their question is simple:

I fell in love with our mission — to empower travelers — and couldn’t stop thinking about it.

My co-founder and I had a hunch that we were onto something big, with the potential to benefit consumers everywhere, but I didn’t realize how personal it was until Freebird experienced its first real-life flight cancellation and customer rebooking.

Although we had performed simulations hundreds of times, it was the first time our end-to-end technology stitched together notifications, availability, and rebooking services for a real passenger on a real flight. It was thrilling, to be sure. But as I watched the data roll in and the scenario unfold, I realized this wasn’t just anyone using Freebird. It was family.

My sister was in New York City attending an important business meeting when her flight home to Chicago (and my 18-month-old niece) was cancelled without warning. After receiving a Freebird text and conferring quickly with her colleagues about timing, it took my sister less than 30 seconds to rebook on a different airline, which departed 90 minutes earlier than her original flight. And it didn’t cost her an additional penny.

Her original airline didn’t contact her about the cancellation until more than 15 minutes after she’d heard from Freebird — by which time she’d already rebooked via Freebird on a different airline.

The automated message from the original airline told my sister “not to worry,” she was auto-booked onto the next available flight, departing 7am the following day out of a different, less convenient airport. But wait, it gets worse.

After calling the call center, they also informed her that not only were all other flights on their airline full, but they couldn’t help her book a hotel — even though the new flight they assigned her was the next morning — unless she spoke directly with a gate agent. Mind you, this was at 1pm in the afternoon while she was preparing for an important business meeting. She wasn’t planning on leaving for the airport for another five hours.

By the time her meetings were over, all flight availability that night had disappeared across all airlines.

Without Freebird, she wouldn’t have gotten home to her 18-month-old daughter.

In her own words: “Getting home was so important, but being calm and focused was so important for my work, too. I can’t express just how many ways Freebird made my life better that day!!!”

It was pure coincidence that our first Freebird rebooking was for family, but it reaffirmed everything I’d felt all along, in the most personal way possible: Freebird is about helping travelers get to the people and places that matter most.

Our mission is to empower travelers — and we hope we can count you as one of them this winter. Happy holidays… and here’s to safe, stress-free travels!

Power to the traveler!

Ethan
CEO, Freebird
www.getfreebird.com