Introducing: Airfare for iPhone!

March8

techTravelr’s Flagship iPhone App, ‘Airfare’!

Get Airfare from the app store now!

Update: 1.3 Version Now in the App Store!

Airfare is simply a fantastic resource for people who fly, or plan to fly on airplanes – no matter how frequently.

tl;dr (Summary)

What is Airfare? Airfare is an iPhone app that allows you to find the best deal(s) on flights around the world. It searches through hundreds of similarly-themed airfare search sites (Expedia, Travelocity and the like) and assembles them into a very friendly interface. You can see at a glance the cheapest day to fly in any given month betwixt two airports (auto-complete airport input fields too – you’ve got to try it) and then allows you to either email the result to yourself (or someone else, of course) or view the details from the carriers in Mobile Safari. While ordering plane tickets on an iPhone or iPod Touch can be somewhat cumbersome, it is, at least, possible.

Let’s take a tour of the Airfare iPhone / iPod Touch app! The first screen you’ll come to, commonly known as the “splash” screen, is pretty much a shameless plug for yours truly. There’s a pretty logo for techTravelr and a logo for inZania. inZania is a tight-knit group of eccentric programmers, passionate about technology. We (that is to say, inZania) have put out several other apps, such as MadLibs and StudyArcade Pro.

Airfare's Splash Page

On the following screen, you have an option to search either by day or by month. Daily search will generally come up with a better fare for that specific day, but monthly will give you an idea on the cheapest days to fly. This is what the monthly search looks like:

Airfare Month-Search

As you can see, you have two input boxes for listing departure airport and destination airport, as well as a “chooser” for selecting a date. The first thing to do is select your airports, of course. Clicking on the input box, then typing either the city name or airport code (e.g. LAX) will bring up your options. It’s indescribably helpful having this feature if you don’t know the airport code you want to go to. Just put in “Port” and “Portland, United States – PDX” pops up, if that’s not the one you want, you can click the little arrow to see another one that has “Port” in it.

Airfare's Airport Selector

Then you select the date that you want to leave, in my case, it’s going to be April, 2009.

Airfare's Date Selector

Then we search!

Airfare's Searching

Search speed depends on your connection, but over wifi, it only takes a few seconds, at most.

Airfare's Flight Cost Calendar

This calendar shows the cheapest day to fly in the month you selected; the highlighted one is the cheapest in the month. $237 coast-to-coast is certainly not a bad deal, but unfortunately, I need to leave on the 7th, so the price is a little higher. Clicking the date brings you to the detail view:

Airfare's Flight Details

Here we have listed all of the flights that leave on the 7th with their prices, name of airline, departure and arrival times and dates. The dates are important, as this is a round-trip ticket. Clicking on the ‘GO’ button brings a few options. From here, I can email the flight to someone or open the flight details in mobile safari (and thus purchase the tickets using the iPhone.) I’ll going to choose the former, as it’s much more convenient using my computer to input billing details.

Airfare's Options

And there we have it, Airfare for the iPhone. It’s extremely handy to have around, even just for price-checking flights on a whim. Download it, test it out, let me know what you think!

posted under airfare, discounts, iPhone, planning

“Introducing: Airfare for iPhone!”

1. On March 28th, 2009 at 3:25 pm BT Says:

   Great idea – but does it work for Australia? So far it has respectfully suggested that there may not be any flights between Sydney and Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra, Perth, Auckland,etc etc!!! Don’t think so!

   Any ideas or is an Aussie update coming.

   Thanks

   BT

2. On March 28th, 2009 at 4:24 pm techTravelr Says:

   It certainly should!
   I just tested it – I chose SYD to BNE for April and came up with a good number of options, cheapest one being $130 for the 20th.

   But even so, with airfare 1.3 coming out (hopefully) in a few days, it will vastly improve the range of flights we are searching. Although it doesn’t support international departures, we are going to add that ability in 1.4. We’re just waiting for Apple to approve our update!

3. On March 28th, 2009 at 8:27 pm BT Says:

   Thanks techTravelr for your help via email. It’s all working fine now and your prompt help was great. Really excellant. I’m now looking forward to the updates!

   [PS if you haven't visited Austrlia yet - it's a 'must see.']

4. On March 28th, 2009 at 8:39 pm techTravelr Says:

   I certainly plan to visit Australia, here is my plan:

   Rent a camper van in Perth and travel anticlockwise – Adelaide, Melbourne, Hobart, Sydney, Brisbane, Cairns – then across to Darwin, down the middle to Alice Springs and Ayres Rock, back up to Darwin, and down the west coast back to Perth.

   What do you think?

5. On March 31st, 2009 at 9:47 am FK Says:

   Great App! Can’t wait for the southwest data!

   Have an idea for an update though.
   In the current state (version 1.2) you can only search for roundtrip prices. Is there a plan to update the search engine to include one-way travel as well? Currently I like the user interface but I think if you were to implement an option for an extensive search that would be great way to implement the idea (click on a small “+” sign for example and have a drop down to select roundtrip or one-way, # of passengers, etc.)

6. On March 31st, 2009 at 9:50 am techTravelr Says:

   Thank you for the compliment!

   Yes, Airfare 1.3 has the option to search one-way flights, and many other additional options (# of passengers, etc).

7. On April 1st, 2009 at 7:17 pm Violetta Says:

   Hi !
   The Airfare is awsome program to have on the I-Phone! I love it!
   only i have one problem
   I used it for a couple of times and then it’s just wont work…what should i do to make it work again?
   Thanx, Violetta

8. On April 1st, 2009 at 7:20 pm techTravelr Says:

   Hi Violetta! I’m pleased to hear you have enjoyed Airfare.

   Can you clarify what exactly the problem is that you are having? Are you getting a popup of any sort? Which airports are you trying to fly to? Which month are you using?

9. On April 3rd, 2009 at 10:06 am FK Says:

   Thanks for the update! I can’t get the flight below to work properly though. Please Fix.

   Minneapolis (MSP) to Chicago Midway (MDW) produces an error during a Month Search.

10. On April 3rd, 2009 at 9:16 pm Violetta Says:

    Thanx you very much!!!
    Every this is working perfect!!!

11. On April 3rd, 2009 at 9:17 pm Violetta Says:

    Thank you very much!!!
    Everything is working perfect!!!

12. On April 5th, 2009 at 4:36 pm Jay Says:

    I don’t own the app yet, but I would like to know if there’s a multi-destination option and if the previous search criteria is saved. If not, will those features be added in the future?

13. On April 5th, 2009 at 5:11 pm techTravelr Says:

    Hi Jay,
    Previous criteria is saved, but we currently don’t support open-jaw flights, if that’s what you’re referring to?

14. On April 6th, 2009 at 6:20 pm Jay Says:

    Yes, I think that’s what it’s also called. Just for clarification and as an example: I would like to fly from airport A to airport B, but fly from airport C back home to airport A. It’s also called “multi-city” when trying to book flights on sites like Expedia, Priceline, Travelocity, various websites of airlines, etc. Should I assume the option not being currently supported means that it will be supported in a future version? Thank you for promptly replying.

15. On April 6th, 2009 at 6:32 pm techTravelr Says:

    While it’s not going to be in the next version of Airfare (which is a massive update itself) – it could very possibly be added into a future version – thank you very much for your suggestion