Booking airfare is always an expensive process, but saving up enough money for even a reasonably priced ticket can take forever. While you’re waiting for room in your budget, some great deals are probably passing you by.

Airfordable, a Chicago-based startup joining Y Combinator this summer, is trying to change that. By letting users pay for a portion of the ticket up front and then pay off the rest of the ticket in installments before takeoff, the hope is that users won’t have to pony up all that cash at once.

Craig Henry, Airfordable’s co-founder and chief risk officer, said the system leans on the layaway model available at retail giants like Walmart.

“The idea started with our CEO Ama [Marfo],” Henry said. “When she was in college, she struggled to be able to go home to visit her family in Ghana.”

The process starts the way any travel plans start. Customers use their normal technique to search for airfare to find the right flight for their needs, be it an airline's website or a third-party travel site.

Then, they upload a screenshot of their flight details, fill out a few forms and pay an initial, non-refundable down payment, which is currently at 38 percent. Airfordable then buys the ticket and sends the customer a bi-weekly payment schedule. After the last payment is sent, Airfordable sends the customer the ticket.

While Airfordable doesn’t currently partner with any airline, Henry doesn’t see them having any problem with their model.

“In the travel industry, the cart abandonment rate is almost 80 percent,” he said. “There's a lot of people that go looking for trips, but because the ticket is too high or the airline doesn't offer enough payment options, those people just close and decide, 'Well, I guess I'm not going on a trip.'”

But customers who might opt for cheaper travel or forgo trips due to transportation costs altogether may be more likely to spend that money if they had other options. The layaway model requires a one-time fee, usually between 10 and 20 percent, but doesn’t charge interest or require a credit check.

“Credit is not the best way to assess somebody's ability to repay,” Henry said. “Instead of taking our customers through this exhaustive underwriting process right now, our 38 percent deposit ... is what filters out customers that are more likely to default.”

Airfordable plans to return to Chicago after its time at Y Combinator is up. Henry said people have been encouraging the company to move to San Francisco, but that hasn’t convinced the team to alter its course.

“We just know in Chicago, we're not going to burn through money as quickly as a company might here in San Francisco,” Henry said. “And I love Chicago, so it would be hard to leave.”

Currently, the site is run by just three co-founders: Henry, Marfo and Emmanuel Buah. In the short term, the company plans on bringing on another engineer. While Airfordable is focused on air travel for the foreseeable future, Henry said they may enter into other travel markets, such as hotel bookings, to allow customers to book entire vacations without breaking the bank.

Image via Airfordable

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