Transportation Research Contributor

Ravi Menon

12 years in travel and aviation · At Air Support Desk since 2020 · Singapore

Covers routing, multimodal journeys and trip sequencing, and tests every alternative routing he recommends before it is published.

Biography

Background

Ravi plans complicated itineraries for a living, mixing air, rail and road across Asia and Europe. He came to travel research from transport planning, which is why his guides tend to start with a timetable rather than a price.

He writes the routing and planning material at Air Support Desk, including split tickets, self-transfers and rail-air combinations, and keeps a running log of the journeys he has actually made on the routes he describes.

If a connection is listed as workable in one of his guides, he has usually walked it.

Areas of expertise

Multimodal routing across air, rail and road
Self-transfer and split-ticket risk
Minimum connection times and terminal transfers
Trip sequencing and booking order

Topics covered

Safe connection times
Split tickets and self-transfers
Combining rail and air
Nearby airport trade-offs

Role

Editorial responsibilities

Responsibilities

Owns the Route Alternatives desk reference set
Verifies connection timings against published airport and rail schedules
Reviews planning guides for feasibility before editorial sign-off
Flags routing guidance that has gone out of date after a schedule change

Editorial principles

A routing is only recommended if it survives one thing going wrong.
Cheaper is not better if the failure mode is a missed flight.
Name the airport, the terminal and the transfer, not just the city.

Research methods

Builds each routing against published schedules rather than aggregator estimates
Checks terminal transfer times with the airport operator's own guidance
Re-walks or re-times connections he has recommended at least once a year

Experience

Professional experience

2020 to present
Transportation Research Contributor, Air Support Desk
Writes and verifies routing, connection and trip-planning guidance.
2016 to 2020
Network Planning Analyst, regional transport authority
Modelled interchange timings across rail and airport links.
2013 to 2016
Itinerary Specialist, corporate travel desk
Built complex multi-carrier itineraries for long-haul business travel.

Recent work