When the pandemic hit, like most in the travel industry, our focus turned from business as usual to gearing our products toward COVID-related travel. We added travel advisories, COVID stats, and quarantine information to our API in an attempt to make it more relevant to the times. Every travel company out there is building its own little COVID bandaid. However, it is increasingly clear that no single company is going to solve the problem of getting travelers all the information they need to travel safely again, and that the virus is here to stay for several more months at least. It's time to open the data up and share it through simple APIs so the entire industry (and ultimately, travelers) can benefit.  

It's now easier for Concur and TripIt users to experience Lumo! Our browser extension for Concur's booking tool now allows you to view Lumo's predictions, travel advisories, COVID stats, and more at the time of booking, and our TripIt integration now syncs itineraries with TripIt so you stay informed about possible disruptions during your trip. At just a couple of dollars a month per traveler, that's less than your travelers would spend on coffee at the airport.

Wish there was an API to tell you everything you wanted to know abut delays at an airport? Now there is! Lumo's Airport API combines our flight-level predictions and real-time weather and ATC data to deliver a comprehensive view of current and predicted disruptions at an airport.

It's official – we're making access to our API easier! You can now try a limited version of our API for evaluation and testing, and be up and running in a few minutes (did we say it's free?). Just head on over to our free trial page, put in your email, and we'll email you an API key in seconds.  

Deciding whether to travel these days is hard enough without having to read through complicated travel rules. Whether you're a traveler, a travel agent, or a travel manager, keeping up with the latest quarantine rules and travel restrictions can be daunting. That's where we come in – Lumo's algorithms automatically keep track of regulations, using AI to summarize rules so you have a sense for restrictions before you book a flight or travel. 

The nature of travel has changed, and so have travelers' and travel managers' expectations of technology. We are doing our part to help manage travel in these complicated times.

Lumo's data now includes health alerts and safety advisories from various government agencies including the US Department of State, Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the US Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), detailed daily COVID stats, and more. 

It's hard to celebrate too hard these days with the challenges that we in the travel industry (and beyond) are facing, but we're really happy to have made it to SAP's SAP.iO travel accelerator! The accelerator helps facilitate integrations with SAP Concur and potentially run pilots with SAP customers.

Lumo is now TEDx-adjacent :) Watch Lumo co-founder and Chief Scientist Hamsa Balakrishnan speak at MIT on flight delays and how data can help.  

It's sunny as you look out the airplane window, you check the weather at your destination and all looks great too, but the pilot says you're waiting for clearance from Air Traffic Control to take off. What gives?

Several factors limit the rate at which flights can land safely at an airport, including visibility, wind gusts and wind direction, cloud ceilings, on so on. The Air Traffic Control system in the United States manages these conditions through Ground Delay Programs (or GDPs). During a GDP, flights headed to an airport with reduced landing capacity are held on the ground at their origin airport (hence the term ground delay). This prevents flights from taking off too early and queuing in the air near the airport, which is more expensive and less safe.

Lumo's machine learning algorithms predict GDPs and their impact on flight delays.

I used to travel a ton in my past life in consulting – I remember waking up every Monday morning at 4am to catch my 5:30am flight, and getting back home on the late flight on Thursday night. A few months into the project, I would have given anything for an extra hour of sleep.

Travel burnout is real. According to a YouGov survey on behalf of NexTravel 20% of travelers say that travel has a negative impact on their mental health, and an ARC survey showed that 15% of road warriors are burned out or close to it.