Flightstats.com has introduced its new travel website, enabling “travelers buy smarter with performance ratings unlike any others”.

4/13/2006 [eyefortravel.com] The company’s website has shifted its focus from sharing information about its extensive business solutions to serve both the consumer and business travel market. The site is about easy-to-use tools that help business and leisure travelers travel smarter at each phase of travel - before, during and after.

“Everyone complains when their flights are late or they miss a connection,” says Meara McLaughlin, vice-president - business development, FlightStats.

“If you could see clearly, before you buy that the flight you wanted to buy was a one star (habitually late) and another on the same carrier an hour earlier was a five star for $10 more, which would you pick? Why buy blind?”, says McLaughlin. According to the company, Flightstats.com helps in finding the best flight for money. “A low price paid for poorly performing flight that could ruin your vacation or business trip is no bargain.”

Flightstats.com also offers the first global flight alert system for any flight, regardless of where travelers book, which carriers they use or where they are headed. A simple entry form sets a monitor on any flight that will send an alert to a desktop, PDA, or even cell phone. Other useful day-of-travel features are the TSA security wait time estimates for your airport, terminal, gate and time of day, global flight status lookup by flight route or airport, weather conditions and forecasts, and much more.

The site also introduces a variety of online forums to give travelers a place to share experience and intelligence empowering people to travel smarter.
The company also talks about the first two application Widgets for flight status and flight rating lookup.

“A Widget is a mini-application that provides you with fast access to FlightStats information and services. Widgets are available free to add to your Google or Microsoft Live.com personalized home page. Widgets can also easily be included on any website by downloading simple HTML code. These too are free for personal or commercial use,” according to the company.