Design a product to buy flight tickets.

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Design a product to buy flight tickets.

Asked at Google over a year ago

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ajayg · Answer 1 · 2021-01-11T21:35:17+0000

Clarifying Qs:

Is it any Mobile App OR Google specific product, that will help to connect travelers with the best flight ticket deals? - Let's go with Google App for now.
IS it for local or international travel - BOTH
What is the primary goal for building such an app when we already have a plethora of such travel sites today ? - Let us say to increase engagement with the product and get best possible listings for flights which will result in more bookings
IS it only to lookup for flights OR other auxiliary services like Car rental, Hotels, pick up drop offs to airport? - Up to you.
Any specific targeted user type: business travel or Vacation travel, etc - Choose Any

Goal: Build a Flights Ticket purchase app to increase engagement with travelers on best deals and increase bookings

Describe Product: This product will act as a platform to connect travelers to their potential destinations and get the best possible deals on their flight tickets from point A to Point B and let users book their travel.

Users/Personas:

Family with kids who love to travel
Business travelers
Adventure travelers
Travel agents
Airlines

I will go with Family with Kids since I feel there is a big pool of users that go on vacations

User Journey

I would first like to search by my destination location, travel dates, trip options(round trip Vs one way, Economy Vs Biz, etc), Add my family members and their ages, and hit search
The search results will retrieve options, preferably sorted with cheapest fares
Then I can go ahead and see the details of the ones I choose to go with
I can then book the flight deal. I should also get any promotional fares, travel points to use up prior to booking.
I also need to know the cancellation and refund policies, in the event my travel plan changes.

User Journey Pain Points:

I need the most relevant info for Covid travel, especially international travels.
I also need to compare side by side other deals.
I need to be notified of any promotional offers
I need up to date info on the travel once I have booked it so that I am not missing out any key information for my travel.
I need a social aspect to the flight booking as well, to learn from fellow travelers about their flight experiences
I need transportation to and from the airport
I would like to know what to experience and discover places to visit in my destination

Prioritize the pain points: #2, #1, #5, #3, #4, #7 - as I feel that its important to get the comparison first of all prior to booking flow for best deals, likewise COvid travel info and preparation takes priority during this times, and to improve the engagement/social aspect with the product the #5, #7 are relevant.

Solution IDeas and Priority

Priority	Solution	Value/Impact	Effort
1	#2: Comparison of FLight Deals List out in a tabular format for easy comparison the various travel/flight deals in terms of cost per member, ability to choose seats selectively, any travel points that can be redeemed from that airline, etc	High	Medium
2	#1: Help with questions during Covid travel times: Ability to leverage Google Assistant to get any questions on travel, cancellation, and any other policy answered. Also, important to know any Key Documents to carry during Covid times.( Covid testing doc, etc) There could be potential delays or increased wait times, that I need to know as well. Know about Travel meal options as well	High	High
3	#5: Social Aspect of travel People who have traveled with any of the listed airlines must be able to leave recommendations, ratings, upvote/downvote, etc People can comment with each other and share those comments. Especially helpful during covid times since there is a lot of unknown for travel	High	Medium
4	#3: Promotional Offers Get notifications /alerts on your phone or via emails Be able to redeem any accrued travel points
5	#4: Post booking get up to date info on my travel Must be able to download the boarding passes just a day before Can check in luggage Get travel alerts or nay last minute changes to plans	Medium	Medium
6	#7: Discover your travel destinations: - Trip/Itenerary planners can be included for the destinations - Along with places to visit, google maps can be leveraged to provide more specific location details and interesting surrounding places	Medium	Medium

For MVP, I will go with the top 3 listed above for higher engagement and better discoverability of flights

Metrics:

% of MAU who search for flight deals
% of MAU who use the Google Assistant for queries
% of MAU that book deals
The most frequently searched up destination
The max number of travel deals listings by airlines
% of MAU , WAU that cancel their flights
% of users who look up deals, compare , view travel plan details BUT do not Book.
The number of users who interact with other passengers, comment, provide ratings, and share those.

Summary:

I have started off by asking clarifying qs, setting up a goal, identifying a few user groups and honing in one user type. I have provided user journey steps, some pain points and prioritised them. I have listed solution ideas for the prioritised pain point, and prioritised solutions by Impact/Effort to build and chosen top 3 ideas for MVP to build. Finally I have outlined metrics we can track for.

PM Team · Answer 2 · 2021-01-11T22:51:51+0000

Hey,

First, I would ask the following questions for the interviewer:

Whether this should be a software solution or should it also cover hardware?
Is this product for a specific airline or any specific kind of user segment?

Second, I would state that my structure would be looking like this:

I would think about user segments that usually buy airline tickets
I would like to break down the goals for the most lucrative user segment
I would like to think of a solution that would address one of the user goals and highlight how a user journey for this could look like

1) User segments that are typically buying airline tickets are

- Business customers who want to visit clients or get to business meetings

- Tourists who want to travel to have an adventure and make holidays

- Families who want to go on vacation with their kids

- Commuters who travel back on weekends and are working somewhere else

- Elderly people who want to visit family or travel

I think for the following part I will focus on commuters who fly between their jobs and home bases.

The reason I would like to explore this segment further is that despite the ongoing pandemic, we are living in a society that becomes more and more connected world more alternative lifestyles are possible through cheaper airline travel. Such as living in Barcelona and working in London for example. I think this is a trend that is going to continue and for a lot of people, there is still a lot of potentials when it comes to this.

2) Commuters are in general interested in seamless transit. They do not want to have to coordinate their flight schedule with their business appointments or personal events.

Therefore, flexibility is a very important aspect of the buying experience.

Moreover, commuters want to know exactly what are the time windows from door to door and when they can take the last flight to get to their home base on a Friday evening after work for example. Therefore, it is important to have tangible ETAs for door-to-door travel including public transport and cabs. This can be summarized as the ability to have tangible and reliable time statements.

Lastly, commuters are interested in getting cheap prices and participating in loyalty programs to collect miles.

In summary, commuters really care about

Flexibility
Reliability
Prices

Now, I think the most important aspect would be the flexibility goal for the commuters. Where a ticket app could enable them to be more flexible with their flight schedules. I think the ultimate goal would be that a commuter could buy a ticket for any given day, and would be allowed to use any flight for that day. Where the commuter would pay added markup to the service for a flexibility ticket, which in turn would allow them to board any flight they would want to take.

The service itself could reserve a certain number of seats on different flights between major commuter cities, and issue the tickets within minutes before the flight to the users. Where the commuters could first pay for the flexibility ticket but the app would still require them to reserve the seat up to 60 minutes before the flight (to manage to get through security). Where other commuters would at any given moment see the left capacity of the remaining flights.

To make this more tangible walk you through the user journey step by step.

First, a new commuter would register with the app and leave every information that is necessary to book an airline ticket.

Second, the commuter could buy a flexibility ticket for a given day at a little higher price than the average ticket price for that day.

Third, the commuter finishes work and drives to the airport.

Fourth, as he arrives at the airport to fly back home, he reserves a seat for the next flight that is covered by his flexibility ticket.

Fifth, the app issues the boarding pass, and the commuter could proceed to security and then to the gate.

There are some caveats that are noteworthy, for example:

- To have this flexibility the app would need to build tech partnerships with various airlines.

- The booking system would need to keep track of how many seats are left.

- Finally, the system would rely on a sophisticated forecasting model to predict the capacities accurately.

To summarize, I would build a flight tickets system that would allow commuters to buy flexibility tickets for any given day. The premise of the flexibility ticket would be that they do not need to follow a schedule anymore but rather could jump on the next flight home whenever they are done with work.