Flight Information – Access information before you board the flight.
United Airlines and American Airlines used to offer thick books, which covered only their airlines, which made it difficult to, compare schedules. Prices were also not included, which made comparison shopping with paper booklets impossible. These schedule booklets did offer flight info which was helpful after you made a reservation, but not during the reservation process itself. The flight information available to users insured that the passengers stayed with the airlines, and didn’t wander to others. Cheap flights were particularly hard to find during this era, as they could not afford the constant printing and updating that the major airlines could afford. As a result, many booking flights were unable to comparison-shop, and frequently didn’t know what the best fares could be. The advent of modern electronic media made it much easier for normal consumers to find cheap flights and flight information that was more useful. It also allowed them to comparison-shop amongst the various airlines. No longer was it necessary to collect books from a number of airlines and laboriously go through, trying to find the schedules that worked, then calling the airline to understand the myriad of costing schemes attached to those schedules.
American Airlines was one of the pioneers in using the new media to make it easier to get flight information and book online. United Airlines was somewhat slower—perhaps because they did not have the depth of experience that American had in putting together its own Sabre reservations service. Flight information became widely available in the early 1990’s as the Internet started to become more widespread, first in offices, where broadband connections were the norm, then in the late 1990’s in the home, with the broader spread of DSL and cable modems.
As travelers became more familiar with the Web tools, they became smarter shoppers as well. They started to work with multiple screens, then with travel services which made schedule- and price comparisons much easier. Priceline was one of the early competitors in this arena. Its ‘ask your own price’ motto was difficult for the airlines to pass up—it gave them a ready outlet to sell unused seats at prices they didn’t have to advertise to the broader public.