Flight selection

Flight selection

Improve the core user experience across platforms

Mobile: Porter Airlines iOS & Android app

Role: Main Product Designer (end-to-end ownership)

Overview

Flight selection is the core user experience for Porter Airlines - this product is the main driver of key transactional flows such as flight booking and flight change.

As the main product designer for flight selection, I redesigned the flight booking experience on web and the flight change experience on mobile.

Growing the flight change experience in the app

In 2022, Porter introduced new fare families and a premium cabin as part of a major fleet expansion. The challenge was educating customers on new fare products. Selecting a flight (and fare) was already a complex decision to make even before this product rebranding, and we wanted users to stay in the app rather hunting for details.

I closely partnered with Business, Engineering, and Product to make sure the design aligned with business goals, provided a consistent experience with web, stayed true to the brand, and accounted for edge cases.

Flight change flow released in May 2023, as part of the public launch of the app

I also improved the flow's accessibility by providing training for developers and quality engineers, annotating accessibility for hand-off, and frequently testing with screen reader, screen magnification, and alternative navigation users on Fable.

Accessibility annotations of the mobile app flight change flow

As I grew to a more senior role, I also leveraged user research insights to pitch additional features for loyal customers i.e. frequent travellers. A key feature launched in 2025 was the was the ability to change between nearby airports—for example, from Toronto Billy Bishop to Toronto Pearson or from New York - Newark to LaGuardia.

This new feature saw high adoption in 2025 - the eirport selection screen had 224K+ views by 55K+ users, with 9% exploring alternate airports.

Flight change flow to choose another nearby airport

Late 2025, as flight change expanded to loyalty bookings and more complex scenarios, I stepped back to identify usability .and accessibility gaps in my earlier design.

Some self-critique on 2022 design of the flight card

With competitive analysis, Figma Make, and user testing, I improved the card design for better visual hierarchy and accessibility.

New flight card design with better information clarity, accessibility, and more space to scale up for future use cases

Enhancing the flight booking experience on web

Taking my learnings from the mobile app flight selection experience, I redesigned the website's flight booking flow to improve visual hierarchy and reduce cognitive load.

Customer interviews with frequent travellers revealed multiple issues with the current flight selection experience:

Lack of price transparency
Low visual hierarchy
Clunky calendar interaction
Unclear fare inclusions
Cluttered mobile view

I partnered closely with Business, Product, Engineers and other Designers to identify business goals, technical constraints, and UX consistencies. I also validated designs through user testing with Userlytics and Fable to improve usability and accessibility.

The redesigned flight booking experience on Porter Airlines responsive website

Owning the flight selection experience over multiple years taught me to design for scale, growth, and long-term product health. Business demands and user needs keep evolving, and a product designer's role is to balance those needs.