Despite it still ranging in the 60’s for we inhabitants of San Francisco, in other places the air is crisp and heated, smelling of fragrant summer berries and watermelon, lemonade and bikinis with the accompanying sun hats. The blue skies and once pale skins developing amber glows make people anxious for that thing we all crave: summer vacation. With summer looming just around the corner in June, people everywhere are no doubt researching where to go and what to do, and mostly, how to get there as cheaply as possible. The recession has not boded well for many accustomed to certain luxuries in life, particularly travel. A cartoon by Roz Chast from The May 25th issue of The New Yorker aptly illustrates this point by showing three people side by side under the banner “Les Nouveaux Pauvres” (The New Poverty), the woman wearing a sign that reads “Didn’t Buy Those Boots,” and the man next to her with a sign reading – very fittingly, I might add – “Not Going Away This Summer.”

With people looking closer to home for cheaper vacation plans, such as camping or finally appreciating local history over extravagant, lofty whims of la vida grande along the beaches of Basque, the airplane industry has recently taken somewhat of a nosedive. However, lately many airlines have been offering greatly reduced prices in an effort to increase ridership; people who are still interested in travelling to that remote villa in the backcountry of France may still be able to do so without strangling their wallet. The question now is, how to navigate that myriad maze of airfare sites like Orbitz, Expedia, and Travelocity.com and come out with the best bargain?

Here is where Airfare by TechTravelr.com comes to the rescue. Their tagline boasting, “the cheapest flights you’ll find anywhere,” Airfare saves you the trouble of manually navigating different airplane sites because it searches through them for the cheapest flights, in a manner of seconds, for you. You have the option of searching for flights on a specific date or, should you desire variability in your plans, all the flights within a particular month. The month search option lays out a calendar with all the highlighted flights available; you can then click on any of the dates to choose a flight, at which point Airfare gives you the option of either emailing the flight to yourself or to link to it in Mobile Safari should you wish to book the flight right away. The Safari browser then opens to the site that sells the ticket – for instance, a $239 ticket from SFO to NYC on October 9, 2009 is offered on www.kayak.com. Naturally, before Airfare searches for a ticket, you can select between Economy, Business, or First-Class seating, between a one-way or roundtrip ticket, and you can select up to 6 passengers at a time. Some may balk at the 6-passenger cut-off, particularly from those of large families, but this doesn’t prevent one from simply searching for another set of tickets.

After doing some manual research myself, tinkering with prices and dates on various sites like Expedia and Priceline, I found that Airfare found cheaper prices than I did, and saved me quite a bit of time and frustration, to boot. Also, the Airfare App is pretty to look at, with happy, sunny colors percolating in the background that just make you yearn for packing your bags. It is very easy to navigate, easier even than sites like Expedia, and the only tiny drawback is you still have to book a flight through an outside site, rather than Airfare making the transaction itself. Of course, this only means clicking the flight and then breaking out the wallet.

With Airfare on your iPhone, finding flights on the run, and cheap ones at that, will have you flying high in no time.