Cheap flight search engine Skypicker says it is finding a growth niche in youth and budget travelers who want to tour Europe.
Since Skypicker was profiled by Tnooz a year ago, the Czech start-up has sold tens of thousands of tickets.
In July it netted about 360,000 [CORRECTED:] 550,000 euro in revenue. Given that pace, Skypicker expects to earn 3 million euro in revenue in 2014 -- a figure that represents a mix of fees for tickets sold directly and commissions for referrals via metasearch across its websites in several languages plus WhichAirline (acquired earlier this year).
In July Skypicker sites attracted 150,000 visitors, up from 30,000 a year earlier. It's clearly putting its half-million in funding to work.
Most of Skypicker's sales go through metasearch referrals, with partners including Momondo, Aviasales, and Liligo. The start-up, which is based in Brno, also claims above-average margin on those sales.
Signature twist
Skypicker stands out from competitors by making it easy to buy interline tickets on more than one budget airline, such as an itinerary that includes legs on Wizzair and Volotea. This spares users from having to visit each low-cost airline's website and search for, and buy, tickets separately.
The site can do this because it receives LCC data directly. It claims about 97% of its fare data is "fresh" and that it adds a carrier to its database every week on average.
Skypicker also distinguishes itself by not requiring users to pick specific dates or destinations to run searches. Many youth and budget travelers have flexible schedules that let them travel on various dates or via various airports.
For instance, a user can pick a country he or she would like to visit during a particular month, and the site will fetch the most affordable flights in and out, such as Prague to Paris for 32 euro, for a variety of airports and dates.
Avoiding the GDSs
Skypicker, which says it has 23 employees (plus two at WhichAirline), doesn't gets its rates through global distribution systems such as Amadeus the way that other search engines typically do.
CEO Oliver Dlouhý offers a couple of reasons why:
Skypicker is focused on low-cost carriers (LLCs) and many of these don't participate in the GDSs, even in Amadeus's Extreme Search.
Also: GDSs are unable to do LCC-interlining (combining multiple LCCs into a single itinerary). They also don't work well with Skypicker's emphasis on non-specific date and open-ended origins and destinations.
Soon to try a B2B play
Given that the start-up powers its own search engine with its own connections and algorithms, Dlouhý describes it as more of a technology firm than a online travel company.
He plans to offer Skypicker's LLC-search-and-book API to online travel agencies, which could integrate its rare ability to combine low-cost carriers into a single itinerary.
Skypicker's main competitors are Opodo, eBookers, and local travel agents.
WhichAirline pivot
In January, Skypicker acquired WhichAirline, which continued its metasearch model and has since averaged about 400,000 visitors per month across all 36 of its language versions.
As of this month, WhichAirline was redesigned and stepped into a new business model of direct bookings, similar to an Expedia-style travel agency, by connecting its back-end systems with Skypicker.
It is open to partnering with travel agents besides Skypicker, but hasn't yet.
WhichAirline CEO Petra Vaskovych is working on a user section where customers who log in will be able to see and edit their bookings and receive loyalty rewards.
Vaskovych was less certain if she would expand the marketing of its newsletter, called Watchdog, which only has 25,000 subscribers to date.
Elevated trajectory
While small, Skypicker is hiring, particularly for back-end development, business development, and customer support, according to CzechCrunch.
One note of caution: A substantial part of Skypicker's recent growth has been in Russia, and there has, obviously, been worrisome political turmoil between that country and Europe -- which might impact travel.
Skypicker's next strongest portals are Portugal and Spain. It expanded in France last month, and it has other initiatives in the works.
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