The industry and media can always count on Kayak co-founder and CEO, Steve Hafner, for a few choice quotes during his appearances at events.
But beyond the poking fun at supposed rivals such as Hipmunk, he sometimes does have a few interesting things to say, too.
Speaking during the PhoCusWright sessions at ITB in Berlin last week, Hafner conceded that in Europe, at least, Kayak is not finding the market as easy to dominate as in its home country of the US.
When asked about the metasearch landscape, he admitted:
"There are a lot of formidable competitors here."
Hafner was clearly referring to brands such as Skyscanner and Trivago - the latter which found itself with a new majority owner in the shape of Kayak parent company Priceline's arch enemy Expediain December 2012.
Skyscanner is considered by many to be the larger and trickier of the brands which Kayak competes against in Europe, so it was interesting to hear how Hafner believes his company can make in-roads into the maturer European market.
"We need to have a better product," he said when asked directly about going up against Skyscanner.
Hafner pointed to how Kayak needs to have a comprehensive offering across not only flights, but also hotels and car hire, arguing that other brands "do not have a complete product offering".
"We hope that we can get there. We want to be the company that helps solve the problem with travel search in Europe."
Where Hafner reverted to form and got rather pointed in his analysis of the marketplace, came in comments about strategies to attract customers and push branding.
Trivago is well known for spending a fair degree of money on advertising (it is, after all, part of a wider portfolio that splashed out some $2.8 billion during 2014), yet Hafner explained that Kayak's policy would not be to follow suit.
He added:
"They have a desire to lose money in a way that we do not."
Still, Hafner obviously understands that marketing muscle is a massively important part of the weaponry needed to make a significant impact on the metasearch scene in Europe.
"As metas get bigger and there is more consolidation, I wouldn't want to be a sub-scale meta player right now."
"You can't afford to invest in marketing."
Interestingly, Hafner did have something marginally positive to say about Google Flight Search, an outcome of the Google-ITA Software deal which Kayak railed against through the formation of FairSearch lobbying group in 2010.
The product is fast and "getting good", he said, before claiming the search results are not always completely accurate.