An interesting little new widget finally came out of beta this week and I think it’s safe to say airline revenue management folks are probably not too happy about it.

The application is called Yapta and it is a little downloadable program that will track air fares for you, letting you know if prices are going up, going down, or staying the same.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, Yapta stands for Your Personal Travel Assistant.

As AppScout.com reported today,

“It’s very easy to input the flight information, but Yapta makes it even easier with a widget that you can download called Yapta Tagger. The browser add-on integrates into airlines’ websites; when browsing through available flights on, say, American Airlines’ site, you’ll see a little button next to each flight that says “Tag it with Yapta.” Click the button and Yapta will add the flight to your list of tracked flights.

All this is fairly helpful when shopping, but it’s even more helpful once you’ve already purchased your tix. Input your flight info and how much you paid for the tickets, and Yapta will continue to keep track of the price until your plane takes off. Why is that so cool? Because airlines will refund the difference if the price drops below what you already paid.

I spoke with Yapta President and CEO Tom Romary a few weeks ago, and he said the airlines are not going to be happy about a service that lets consumers track their prices day to day. Romary, a former airline guy himself, also said airlines try to keep the refund policy under wraps, and here’s Yapta building a whole business out of publicizing it.”

“By enabling travelers to tag the exact flights they want from leading travel sites and receive e-mail alerts when prices drop, we’re providing complete price transparency and presenting them with the opportunity to save a significant amount of money,” Romary added in a press statement this week.

Yes, if that name sounds familiar it should. Romary was vice president of marketing at Alaska Airlines prior to starting up Yapta.