FareCompare

FareCompare L.P. is a privately owned company which provides airline tickets, airfare, air travel planning tools, and travel advice services. The company's primary product is FareCompare.com, an airfare comparison shopping site. It also offers online group travel booking services. The company was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.[2]

FareCompare LP
Private
IndustryTravel technology
Travel services
Founded2004 (2004)
Headquarters
Dallas, Texas
,
United States
Key people
Rick Seaney, CEO
Graeme Wallace, CTO
[1]
ProductsTravel and airfare information
ServicesAirfare Comparison
OwnerXXI Technologies
Number of employees
Unknown
ParentXXI Technologies
Websitefarecompare.com

FareCompare.com is a meta-search engine which pulls data from a number of sources including major airline companies, IATA data, and other sources in order to provide real-time search for air flights based primarily upon low pricing.[3]

History

FareCompare was developed out of XXI Technologies, a business which performed technical consulting and data mining for the oil industry and other companies. While working on a project for Hotels.com, the company became introduced to central databases of airfares which the airlines had cooperatively developed (see Orbitz). The large database containing up to 160 million new ticket prices daily had previously been challenging for searching in real-time, but XXI Technologies came up with new techniques for rapidly processing the volume of data in order to make it searchable.

After Expedia purchased Hotels.com, the work by XXI Technologies was discarded. However, the developers considered the fast processing to be a differentiating feature which might fill a significant market need, so they began operating under a new company name, FareCompare L.P. XXI Technologies became the holding company for the concern and FareCompare.com launched in March 2006. The two principal founders are Rick Seaney, Chief Executive Officer, and Graeme Wallace, Chief Technical Officer.[2]

Technology and products

FareCompare has been known for leveraging new versions of Java in order to exploit the latest advances in performance improvements.[4] FareCompare.com offers users airfare price comparison, as well as hotel and package pricing. Other consumer products include Fare Alerts and weekly Fare Deals.

Research

FareCompare applies data mining techniques to airfare information in order to report upon best dates for cheapest tickets. Statistical data from the company's historical price index is also used by financial analysts to assess and predict airline industry stock prices.[2]

Controversy

Directly after launch, FareCompare frequently attracted disfavor from major airlines for communicating the pricing details their analyses uncovered in airfares, such as the dates consumers should book travel in order to avoid higher pricing, along with other high price avoidance tactics. The company data has been used in news reports and programs about travel tips.[5]

gollark: Don't blame *capitalism* for people being non-long-term.
gollark: You also seem to have said that how stars work is unknown?
gollark: I like unfathomable.
gollark: There was a self replicator built in CGoL some years back. It's hilariously complex and I think involves a universal constructor machine and computer thing.
gollark: They're not exactly his idea. Elementary CAs might be but the original concept is much older.

References
  1. "Farecompare, L P". Hoover's. 2009. Retrieved 16 February 2010.
  2. Jocelyn Hanamirian (2007-08-09). "Power in Numbers". The Washington Post & Conde Nast Portfolio.com. Retrieved 2010-02-15.
  3. O'Neill, Sean (September 2006), "FARE game plan", Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Washington, D.C., no. Vol. 60, No. 9, p. 114
  4. Janice J. Heiss (January 2007). "FareCompare Ready to Soar With Migration to Java SE 6". Oracle Sun Developer Network. Retrieved 2010-02-16.
  5. Presenter:Bill Ritter (2007-12-14). "Busting a Few Air Travel Myths With 20/20". ABCNews 20/20. 3:19 minutes in. ABC. Retrieved 2010-02-16.
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