OhSeat!

Inspiration

We want to empower users to make an informed decision when booking seats, quickly. OhSeat allows travellers to get seating information via text message in seconds - simply text us with your flight number and we will tell you which seats are the best out of those still available for your flight. Include your current seat and OhSeat will tell you whether you can switch to a better seat within your travel class. Our text service allows users to get seat information even when wifi/3G reception is unavailable and our responses include reasons for our seat suggestions.

How it works

Our service sends queries to three services and aggregates the responses from each to choose the best available seat for the user. We scrape FlightAware pages to match flight numbers to airplane models, then call SeatGuru and Sabre Seat Map apis to find the best possible seat. Our server-side logic is written in python Flask and we serve our requests to mobile using Twilio.

Example Interaction

You: "Im on flight BA233, which seat should I take?" Response: "For your flight towards DME you should book seats 21D, 21F, 21A, 21J. Seat 21D has extra legroom. The footrest at this seat is attached to the seat. The tray table is in the armrest, making the armrest immovable and slightly reducing seat width. There is no floor storage for this seat during take-off and landing."

What's next for OhSeat!

We want to:

integrate OhSeat with airlines to allow for seat bookings straight through the service
pairing up of people based on interests - share your flight with a new friend / sit next to somebody you already know