Dana Hette

In my role as senior product manager for Expedia Flights, I launched new branded fare shopping using MVP methodology to validate the problem space - which I synthesized into a single coherent global solution, from varying market strategies and legal requirements. This was a new space in the flights industry at the time, and I partnered with industry heavyweights ATPCo and Amadeus, as well as several major airlines, to design new industry-wide data standards for branded fares. I launched several new features on Expedia designed to surface this new and complex world of flight shopping to the customer in an easy-to-digest manner - empowering the customer not only to choose the flights that best fit their needs but also understand clearly what their flight was going to cost. I also refined the initial feature set through an Agile A/B testing workstream. It was very rewarding to have an impact on the flight industry as a whole and be at the forefront of defining how these new flight products are sold to customers.

In my role as senior product manager for Expedia Flights, I managed a cross-functional, globally distributed team tasked with untangling the problem of baggage fees on flights. Traditionally, all flights had at least one piece of checked luggage included. However, in recent years, airlines have moved away from that model, and now a customer usually needs to pay to check a bag. The problem is, the data isn't normalized, and the rules and fees vary greatly not only from airline to airline but from fare type to fare type. This created a massive headache for customers, who were often surprised at the airport with unexpected and expensive baggage fees - which they then blamed on Expedia. I led the effort in untangling this mess. This involved normalizing the data on the back end and designing a clean UX for easy surfacing to customers, as well as consolidating myriad legal requirements governing how the information must be displayed from market to market. The end result - substantially improved NPS scores for Expedia due to no more nasty surprises at the airport! This was a gratifying project to run and deliver because I was able to solve a major pain point - by untangling a bunch of complexity and making it simple for the customer.