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1. Travel data is available so there's an incentive to work with it vs other problem domains.

2. Bajillions of dollars are spent on flight.

3. Affiliate (I think there's a better term but I'm blanking) sales are an instant revenue model.

4. Most interfaces to the data suck in one or more ways.

It's tailor made for data- or interface-strong team to make a financially successful startup.

1) true 2)also true, but flight commissions are at ~.1% according to my credible sources. And they are vanishing quick. My personal opinion is that it is a failed business model and as travel companies shift away from making money off of transportation commissions we will see more alternative forms of transportation. 3) Only when a company gets to scale are they able to make ANY money off of flights, and even then the number of queries they have to pay for from their data providers, server costs etc., bite deeply into whatever fee they make. and the fee is super small to begin with. 4) agreed completely, I elaborate on that. Disagree with your conclusion. Hipmunk several years out is still not profitable, with a great interface. A lot of flight travel startups are not profitable, so I don't see how you say this is the formula for a "financially successful" startup.

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