Travel Review Kingpin to Take on the Industry You Hate Most: Airlines

Get your pitchforks out, people

July 12, 2016 9:00 am

Remember that time you got stuck on the floor of an airport for seven hours while your flight cycled through crews? The forced overnight? The dirty bus to the one-star hotel? Getting home 24 hours after you were supposed to?

Remember every indignity, every nickel squeezed, every dude who smashed your knees while trying to escape the hell of his ever-smaller seat?

Well, you now have somewhere to put all that rage. It’s called TripAdvisor. The same website that has brought hoteliers to their knees (for good and for bad) is now poised to act as the same sort of rage funnel for airlines.

TripAdvisor’s revamped flight search function is for now notably slower than competitors — but the company is betting that users will endure it to take advantage of their new reviews, called FlyScore. Though review calculations reflect each airline, the revamped search has added previous flight-specific details, including amenities like power ports and wifi availability.

In the understatement of the year, a TripAdvisor VIP said, “The airline reviews, which TripAdvisor began quietly collecting several months ago, are skewing more negatively than hotel reviews.”

MEET US AT YOUR INBOX. FIRST ROUND'S ON US.

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