Air Travel Status Quo

Hopscotch owes a debt of gratitude (and karma points) to all of the patient people that listened to our idea and creation story. Anecdotal or not, we received much evidentiary support as we spoke with those who shared generous feedback; and many horror stories. 

Objection or Rejection

We received many objections (cough, airlines, cough) from businesses. It was so much so that we continue examining the idea and searching for what we missed. Have we missed something so fundamental about exchanging seats directly between two people that we cannot get through to airlines?

We heard:

"What is the business use case?"

"Why did karma become intertwined with exchanging airplane seats?"

"What makes you think we need your mobile app and API to exchange airplane seats?"

"Do travelers even share your concept of goodwill in supporting another traveler?"

"Does anyone expect a traveler to make altruistic decisions on an airplane to help others?"

"If security rules are there to provide a sense of safety, why interfere?"

"Was air travel designed for enjoyment or do they provide a necessary transportation service?"

My favorites were:

"I don't need another username and password."

-A Business Traveler

"We don't see a way to profit from the idea."

-An Airline

Airlines Doth Protest Too Much

Okay, apparently we missed something about the airline business. I suspect it is because we removed money from the seat exchange equation. The equations I use to efficiently match passengers do not require dollars or even use the "bid-ask" exchange model. Because I did not model the transaction as an auction like E-Bay or the NASDAQ stock exchange. Passengers do not own their seat by proxy and your seat is not a token, although your airline ticket is, as explained by my other articles. Your relationship to your seat is one of "right of temporary use", and hence not one of ownership, implied or otherwise.

Instead, I modeled a fiat, or substitute, merit and time-based system of points. I used these points to estimate and predict micro-transaction proposals and predict the likelihood of reaction as acceptance, rejection or inaction. Meanwhile, air travelers we spoke with asked revealing questions from their travel perspectives on benefits and money. Questions and objections reveal which "side" you are on. We are not creating a secondary source of income for passengers. That was never the purpose of the exchange.

A giant mythological talking tree, named Treebeard from Peter Jackson's movie of Tolkien's Lord of The Rings, said,

"Side? I am on no one's side,

because no one is on my side."

-The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers

We examined how both passengers would benefit from not having to choose "sides" as buyer or seller. We made a giant leap by assuming the avoidance of witnessing reseating arguments and glaring contests would also provide motivation. We never said money cannot be exchanged. We only said money is not the sole purpose of the exchange.

And yet, passenger driven seat exchanges as a concept proved so simple that everyone, without exception, understood the idea immediately. The conversations of how to do it turns into another contentious issues of our story. Questions and non sequiturs we received from travelers revealed much about the limits of individual goodwill for the betterment of the whole.

A Tale of Two Airports

Have you been through Seattle-Tacoma Airport in Washington state? The Port of Seattle operates that particular airport and it stands out from most international airports I have visited in the United States, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. It stands out for me because SeaTak airport frequently schedules live musical performances in their airport atrium. Other airports have since begun to follow suit, including Houston IAD.

The SeaTak airport atrium is situated away from the security screening area. The atrium itself is beautiful and surrounded by open seating with restaurants and shops. It's a real gem of a view when looking out the enormous multi-story wall of glass directly overlooking the runway. It feels like a return to the golden age of air travel with live musical performances to boot.

Why would an airport pay musicians to do play in this atrium? Actually, I wonder why an airport would dedicate such a large open area of prime airport real estate and go so far as to pay someone in support of non-commercial activities. Does it tangibly add to their bottom line? They must know something about public spaces. It adds value to the airport guest experience and promotes commerce in this huge open meeting area.

A few years ago I was sitting at a seafood restaurant off this Seattle-Tacoma Airport atrium. I was enjoying lunch and listening to an acoustic singer-songwriter play original compositions. There was something about the interplay of sounds between the musician and the surrounding hum of conversation, with the clinking of glasses and silverware, that brought back a vivid memory from yet another airport: Portland International Airport. These airports in the rainy Pacific Northwest share an ambiance.

An interesting phenomena happened to me at the Portland International Airport, PDX, circa 2002. There had been this tense exchange in the security screening area. You know, like you do in the modern age of commercial air travel.

An unusual exchange had occurred between a passenger, or "airport guest" in airport lingo, and a security screening agent. The conversation had ended with the screener, speaking to an overly relaxed-looking passenger wearing casual vacationer attire, saying, "Hey... look man, I don't know what drug you're on but just get out of my screening area." The passenger was overly relaxed but this made the rest of us overly tense. I even empathized with the security screening guy doing his job after the passenger adopted the "what did I do?" expression. I guess he had a nice super relaxed flight.

After witnessing the exchange, and further airport shoe and belt hassles, I made my way to my gate. I was seated in the waiting area, far away from the shops and commerce, doing my best "road warrior on a laptop" impression, when I notice some guy striding by carrying an acoustic guitar case. Something was off in his stride because it was like he was on a mission or something. He was obviously a passenger, and maybe a pro musician not employed by the airport. He carried only this guitar case and a small carry on. I'm thinking, "hmm, checked luggage must have his performance gear to lighten his load". 

He continued walking a little way past me until he reached the perfect acoustic projection spot on this long, two-story terminal. It had an arched transparent roof that let in the occasional sun break through a Pacific Northwest cloud blanket. He sat down and casually opened the case and quickly tuned up. And then he effortlessly begins playing a classical guitar piece that was beyond expectation.

He played fingernail and fingertip style to give the notes a rounder, soothing, handmade sound. He played only for 10 minutes or so. It was just short enough for you to miss it once he stopped. I became aware of a relaxation washing over me and deeper breathing in a more relaxed way. The tension from the security incident melted away. I looked around and noticed a similar effect on everyone in the terminal gate area; pets and children too.

Of the hundreds of trips I have taken over the years, this random musician playing guitar in the PDX terminal remains a fond memory of unexpected weirdness. That's because I usually witness unexpected things at an airport where the only people acting "normally" are the pets and young people. They are the few not acting uptight wearing a mask of discomfort, like the rest of us.

Goodwill? At an Airport?

Hopscotch seat exchanges could connect you to filtered and relevant information to your trip. The promise of the "personalized web" experience was centered on making the presentation appear tailored to you. The presentation is not the information itself. Give me actionable information over the personalized, "Hello, Rodney" webpage because, well, you don't know me.

Hopscotch puts the information content into context for the traveler. We prefer to personalize information using relevance to you and your current situation. For example, we first compare your seat preference to every other seat occupied by someone looking for another seat. We do this before informing you both if we can reliably predict that you would like theirs and vice versa. People struggle with "vice versa". It takes two to Hopscotch passenger-to-passenger seat exchanges.

Maybe we can think of a motivation for a Karmic Travel Game. You can abstractly play a strategy game against the SeatBot. You can use a mobile app to "win" your seat. We can call the game the Hopscotch App.

Suspend your belief in money and fiat currency for a moment. Imagine we invented and implemented a computer program as your seat butler. The butler is an algorithm. Let's refer to the current state of affairs at 2018 airports as a "conceptus abstractus". The abstraction is the entire set of possible passenger reseating actions and reactions to all possible seat exchanges. You would be at the gate for a very long, long time playing the who-gets-which-seat game.

Actions can be both beneficial and harmful when framed as an interactive public forum. These terms are constrained or predefined in a public exchange due to time. Air travel requires the operational and function systems constructed around air travel. Maybe it leads passengers to be docile, non-engaging, obedient and deferential. Except people are not like that.

We asked, "What if?". What if there was a way to shift the paradigm? What if there was a way to encourage beneficial action without compromising another? We wondered if airlines focus on the wrong part of passengers expectation and customer service.

Let's take the thought experiment to the extreme. What if we distract passengers with payments to use any and every part of the airplane environment? Does that make any sense at all? What if such a policy actually causes a blowback effect on travel. We don't know for sure if seat location is the answer and do not claim to know. The Travel Industry Association's survey from October 2017 came back with a resounding, "travel is a much bigger hassle than 5 years ago" for over 50% of travelers.

What if there were a mobile app that encourages and allows you to do something non-invasive for someone else, similar to the paying the toll for a car behind you?

What if a seat exchange actually does propagate and promotive positive social interaction?

What if you received better future seat offers through some intermediary as a "thank you to yourself", for helping others today?