Skyscanner has now gone beyond being just a metasearch platform, announcing it will sell flights, albeit via its app and mobile web only in Australia, Singapore and the UK.
Bryan Dove, Skyscanner CEO said: “It’s not a secret that people are increasingly turning to their mobile devices to plan their travel. Yet, the travel industry hasn’t been meeting their expectations. While most travellers start their planning on a phone – for Skyscanner, mobile traffic is 65% globally and exceeds 80% in some regions – the majority still switch to a computer to complete their booking. It isn’t what travellers want, and this doesn’t meet the needs of the next wave of travellers, who rightly demand to be able to do everything from their phone.
We’ve always focused on doing what’s right for the traveller. Travellers have been asking us to combine our global selection and great prices with the mobile convenience they expect. Now, we’re able to address this need. It’s early days, but we’ve seen fantastic results with our new flight booking service. Travellers who make their first booking with Skyscanner show a 52% increased repeat booking rate versus the mobile average for partners, a higher conversion rate and a higher provider selection rate.”
Skyscanner’s own flight booking service leverages the brand’s significant mobile footprint and loyal user base for partners: 100m people use Skyscanner every month, of which 60% come direct, while 90% of the company’s 100m app installs are organic. The new offering also removes the high cost of localised customer care for partners, with Skyscanner providing 24/7 customer service, taking full responsibility for ticketing issues and testing extras such as a flight disruption service. A self-serve cancellation functionality is planned in the future, while early customer satisfaction scores rate Skyscanner’s service as 4/5.
Partners to the new flight booking product include Ctrip, JetMax and CheckMyFares, with three further names expected to be added by the end of the year. The service, currently available in Australia, Singapore and to logged-in users in UK, is to be launched in more markets in early 2020.
Between August 2018 and July 2019, Skyscanner put more than 172m flight passengers in the air. In September, it was announced the value of flight tickets bought through Skyscanner in 2018 totalled $23.7bn.
Featured Image Credit: Getty Images
