The Fake Flight Booking System I Built in Excel That My Friends Now Trust More Than Expedia

There is a spreadsheet on my laptop that contains 47 fictional airline routes, a dynamic pricing algorithm I built during a single sleepless Tuesday in February, and a customer service protocol document that is, frankly, more thorough than anything Delta has ever produced. There is also a loyalty points system. There are baggage fee tiers. There is a dropdown menu that lets you select your fictional meal preference.

None of this is real. And yet, last month, six of my closest friends used it to plan a trip to Nashville.

It Started as a Joke (They Always Do)

The origin story is embarrassingly mundane. I was supposed to be researching actual flights for a group trip to Denver. Instead, I opened a blank Excel workbook and thought: what if I just built the whole thing myself? Not a real booking tool. Not something functional. Just a deeply unnecessary simulation of one, for no reason other than the fact that my brain apparently needed to go somewhere weird that afternoon.

Four hours later, I had a tab called "Route Map" with fictional destinations connected by made-up flight numbers, a tab called "Pricing Engine" with a formula that adjusted fares based on fake demand variables I invented, and a tab called "Fleet Info" where I had named all seven of my fictional aircraft after mid-tier pasta shapes. The Boeing equivalent in my system is called the Rigatoni 900. I am not apologizing for this.

I sent a screenshot to my group chat as a bit. My friend Cassidy replied, "Wait, can you actually book through this?"

Reader, I said yes.

The Architecture of an Absurd Dream

Here is what the system actually contains, because I think you deserve to understand the full scope of what I've done to myself.

The Route Network: Forty-seven city pairs, all real US cities, connected by routes I invented based on vibes and geographic poetry. There's a direct flight from Cincinnati to Boise that doesn't exist in real life and absolutely should. There's also a layover hub I designated as "Quolomo International" in an unnamed midwestern field, which exists purely as a narrative device.

Dynamic Pricing: I built a formula that pulls from a "demand index" I update manually based on how busy I imagine people are. Holiday weekends are expensive. Random Tuesdays in March are suspiciously cheap. The algorithm doesn't know what month it is. Neither do I, honestly.

Seat Classes: Three tiers. Economy, which I've labeled "Fine." Business, which is called "Honestly Pretty Good." And a first-class tier I named "You Deserve This" that includes a fake amenity kit described only as "the good stuff."

Customer Service Protocols: A separate Google Doc, twelve pages, covering rebooking policies, fictional compensation for delays, and a complaints escalation flowchart that ends, at every branch, with the phrase "we hear you and we're sorry about the Rigatoni 900."

The Moment It Became Real (Sort Of)

The Nashville trip was the turning point. My friend group needed to coordinate flights from four different cities—Chicago, Austin, Philadelphia, and one person who was already sort of near Nashville anyway but wanted to feel included. Normally this involves three separate group chats, a shared Google Doc nobody updates, and at least one person booking the wrong dates.

Instead, Cassidy opened my spreadsheet, found routes for everyone, compared the fake prices to real prices for reference, and then—crucially—used the fake prices to negotiate with actual booking sites. "If your fake airline can get me from Philly for $180, why is United charging $340?" She wasn't wrong. She found a $190 fare within twenty minutes.

The spreadsheet had become a benchmark. A fictional standard against which reality was being measured. I genuinely don't know how to feel about that.

Testimonials From the Confused

I asked my friends to describe, in their own words, their relationship with the booking system.

Marcus, Chicago: "I don't fully understand what it is but I trust it more than I trust most websites. It's never tried to sell me a hotel I didn't ask for."

Priya, Austin: "I used it to plan two trips. One of them was real. I can't remember which one was which anymore and I've decided that's fine."

Cassidy, Philadelphia: "It has a complaints department. Expedia does not have a complaints department. I know which one respects me as a customer."

Jordan, who was already near Nashville: "I just like that it has my name in the loyalty program. No one has ever put my name in a loyalty program before."

(I added everyone's names to the loyalty program. They all have zero points. The points cannot be redeemed for anything. Jordan cried a little when he found out he was a Gold member.)

What This Says About Us, Probably

There's a version of this story where I'm a cautionary tale about avoidance and elaborate procrastination. And sure, fine, I built a twelve-tab Excel monument to not doing the one thing I was supposed to do. Guilty. Fully guilty.

But there's another version where this is just what happens when someone takes a weird idea all the way to its logical extreme and discovers, at the bottom of the rabbit hole, something accidentally useful. The spreadsheet works because I over-engineered it past the point of parody into something that functions like a real tool—not because it has real data, but because the structure of thinking through routes and prices and logistics forces you to actually think through routes and prices and logistics.

It's like how playing flight simulator makes you better at understanding airspace even though you're never touching a real cockpit. Except in my case the simulator is a spreadsheet named "AirQuolomo v4.2 FINAL FINAL.xlsx" and my friends are genuinely considering using it to plan a bachelorette trip to Scottsdale.

The Future of AirQuolomo

I've been asked, by multiple people, whether I'm going to "make it real." Build a website. Add actual flight data. Turn it into something legitimate.

Absolutely not. The moment it becomes real it loses the thing that makes it work, which is the complete freedom of having nothing at stake. The Rigatoni 900 can fly anywhere I want. Baggage fees are whatever I decide they are this week. The complaints department is just me, in a Google Doc, writing fictional apology letters to no one.

That's not a bug. That's the whole product.

If you need me, I'll be in the spreadsheet, updating the demand index for spring break, and quietly adding a new route from Portland to somewhere I've always wanted to go but never actually booked.

The fake flight is $94. The real one is $380.

I'm thinking about it.