Happy July, fellow fliers. I'm thrilled to announce BumpySkies First Class, a new, premium tier for BumpySkies. For $5 per month (USD), you can financially support BumpySkies while enjoying features above and beyond the turbulence forecasts that the website has provided the nervous-flier public for free since 2016.

Now in seat 1A: Notifications

As hinted last issue, the very first subscription-only feature is ready right now: notifications for new turbulence forecasts. Subscribers can opt in to receive an SMS text message or an email the moment that a specific flight on a specific day has a turbulence forecast available. You can set up several of these notifications at once, and control how you wish BumpySkies to contact you.

This newsletter is illustrated by the inaugural use of this service in the field, with texts that BumpySkies sent to my own phone about my June flight from New York to Chicago, and my July flight back. I found and fixed several kinks in the feature while doing so, and I expect there are more to find; as with every other part of BumpySkies, I rely on user feedback to inform me what's working and what's not. My mailbox is always open for user reports.

Special thanks go out to the BumpySkies users who answered the call from the previous newsletter issue to help give the notifications feature even more real-world tests.

How to upgrade your legroom

There are two ways to get started with First Class.

Most simply, visit the BumpySkies First Class information page. It leads you through signing into a free BumpySkies account, then purchasing a monthly First Class subscription. When you're done, you can visit your notifications page to set up some flights to watch.

Alternately, every turbulence forecast now features a button inviting you to set up a notification about future similar flights. Clicking this button starts you through the First Class sign-in-or-sign-up process, if you're not already logged in. Once you're subscribed, BumpySkies takes you directly to a pre-filled forecast-notification form. (And if you are logged in and signed up, the button takes you straight to your notifications page.)

My pledges about doing this right

The availability of First Class represents a new era for BumpySkies, even though it remains a one-person operation. I intend to operate First Class according to my own principles, as a person known to have opinions about subscribing to stuff on the internet. This includes all of the following.

No-hassle cancellation and refunds

You can cancel your First Class subscription at any time by clicking a button that's easy to find on your account-management page. This shuts off auto-renewal immediately, with no "customer retention" obstacles begging you to reconsider. If you do cancel, then you keep your First Class access for the rest of the billing period that you paid for. You also keep your free BumpySkies account, which you can use to quickly re-subscribe at any future time.

And while I can't offer one-click refunds, I can offer a simple satisfaction guarantee: if you are ever unhappy with your subscription, just let me know. I'll refund your most recent month, no questions asked.

All that said, if you value BumpySkies enough to use it regularly, then I hope you'll consider staying subscribed to First Class, even during months when you remain pleasantly earthbound. Having ongoing subscribers really does help so much in keeping this service dependably online, and funds the development of new features.

I store absolute-minimal personal info, and no payment info

While BumpySkies.com served no cookies of its own for the first ten years of its existence, the arrival of First Class features means that the time for the website to collect and store at least some user information has arrived. In order for forecast notifications to work, for example, the website really does need to store your email address so it can identify you, your phone number to send you text notifications, and a list of the flights you want to get notified about.

However, the website doesn't store one bit of information beyond the absolute minimum that it must in order to support the features that it offers. And when it comes to especially sensitive payment information, BumpySkies stores nothing: the website relies completely on its payment processor, Stripe, to handle all of that, safely and securely.

For the full run-down of what information the website now collects, what third-party services it shares information with, and why, see the new BumpySkies privacy policy.

The forecasts stay free (for as long as the data's free)

The First Class tier is strictly additive: it doesn't change a thing about the core BumpySkies feature of free turbulence forecasts for the public. Everything that you could do for free on BumpySkies yesterday remains free today, and it'll stay that way.

Let me firm this up into a pledge of its own: As long as flight and weather data is free for me, turbulence forecasts stay free for everyone. Since launching BumpySkies in 2016, I have used continuously updated, high-quality flight and atmospheric data that the U.S. government makes available. Unfortunately, I can't guarantee its indefinite availability: the current administration keeps trying to dismantle the scientific institutions that collect and study atmospheric data, and this might someday affect the data available to BumpySkies.

I hope it doesn't come to that; I hope that the gears of American democracy grind on, and the country's scientific institutions survive the current storm. For now, BumpySkies has the data it needs to bring you free turbulence forecasts, and it will continue to deliver them.

This is a free newsletter, by the way

You've read half of this issue of BumpySkies News! Perhaps you'd like to subscribe for free?

A nod to Patreon supporters

The launch of First Class means that I'll soon sunset the now-redundant ability to support BumpySkies using Patreon, something I launched a few years ago but never put all that much effort into promoting. Patreon works great for supporting lots of independent artists and creators, but it was never really the right shape for BumpySkies.

A handful of BumpySkies regulars have regularly supported the website through Patreon just the same, enough to pay for my monthly repeating server costs—which I have, always, deeply appreciated. As a token of my gratitude, I'm offering a free year of First Class access to everyone who had an active monthly Patreon pledge to BumpySkies as of July 1 of this year. If this is you, drop me a line with your preferred email address!

I'm not sure about the name, though

"First Class" was hard to turn down, as a name. The thematic associations with air travel are clear, and the meaning is immediately obvious. Sign up for this thing to get the usual thing, only moreso!

But I admit to having mixed feelings about so overtly grouping BumpySkies users—and I do cherish all of you—into two different literal classes. Airlines famously have no scruples at all about this behavior, but I'm not certain that BumpySkies needs to follow suit.

I toyed with "Friends of Nelly", "Club Nelly", and other names having to do with the BumpySkies mascot, but I felt shy about the lack of immediate meaningfulness. (Also, it seems a little out-of-character for Nelly. She doesn't want a club! She just wants to get through her next flight.) Regardless, I am a firm believer that every new project gets one free post-launch mulligan regarding its own name. Project names so often carry friction you often don't see until other people start using the thing.

Anyway, more to come

Whatever I end up calling it, support for notifications is just the start of my plans for First Class. I have another paid feature in the pipeline after this one, which I plan to ship before this year is over. Like notifications, it'll be an optional add-on to the basic, free turbulence forecasts—and, to the best of my knowledge, it's a feature not offered by any other passenger-focused site or service.

Here's a hint: I always sit in window seats when I can, in part because seeing the ground scrolling serenely by, far below, always calms me—especially when there's no clouds to block the view. I have a hunch that I'm not the only nervous flier who feels this way. It would be nice if I knew ahead of time how often I could expect to enjoy this kind of miles-high scenery, wouldn't it...

I hope that you'll consider supporting continuing BumpySkies maintenance and development with a First Class subscription, if you can afford to do so. I'm always happy to hear your questions and comments about BumpySkies features old and new: drop me a line any time at jmac@bumpyskies.com.

Wishing you swift and smooth flights all summer long,
jmac