In Europe, Skyscanner's big advantage is that they have price data from low-cost carriers whose fares & inventory are not normally available to GDSes. They'll show you prices for people like Wizz Air, EasyJet, Ryanair, etc. who might not show up in a matrix.itasoftware.com search.
Skyscanner can also construct somewhat of surprising itineraries by piecing together tickets on multiple separate LCCs that involve non-protected transfers, which is something that other price search engines (Hipmunk/Kayak) or online travel agencies (Expedia/Orbitz) don't really do. Most fare engines won't say "hey, if you're trying to get from London to Ljubljana, how would you feel about taking Easyjet LGW-BRU and Adria BRU-LJU?" — but Skyscanner will.
And they have a fairly cool "I want to go from [x city] to [anywhere]" web UI that will show you, for a given weekend, what are the cheapest countries/cities you could visit? The UI is very good, arguably a bit better than the Google Flights fuzzy date/trip search.
It's a great tool for exploring European fares. But I'm not sure how they make money — there's not a lot of revenue in air bookings.
I believe they get referrer fees from airlines when someone actually books a flight.
Also I've heard from people who work there that they do a fair bit of custom analytical reporting for destinations - presumably reporting both on what people search for and what they actually book.
> Skyscanner can also construct somewhat of surprising itineraries by piecing together tickets on multiple separate LCCs that involve non-protected transfers
I used to be a big fan of Skyscanner a few years ago, but recently they seem to have dropped the ball and competitors have caught up.
In terms of the non-protected transfers there is now Skypicker (http://www.skypicker.com/), which lets you search airports by distance from a location (so if you need to get to Copenhagen, Denmark you can also search flights to Malmö, Sweden and take the bus which takes ~1hr). It doesn't seem to have quite as many low cost airlines, and the UI isn't very user friendly.
For general flight searches Momondo (http://www.momondo.com/) has a nicer UI and easier access to the filtering options and price estimates. It seems to have the same airlines as Skyscanner too.
Momondo is nice of course but be very careful as it links to some ... interesting travel agencies and your reservation might just poof! disappear. Make sure to check your reservation exists with the airline about a week after booking.
You may put this in bold. This means, if your plane is late/delayed and you miss a flight, the other airline will give a f. about that and you are left stranded. Proceed with caution!
Not entirely true. Many airlines have some kind of accommodation for same day delays due to extenuating circumstances (aka 'flat tire on way to airport' or 'missed connection from other airline').
Furthermore, even "protected" transfers can be a hassle as many airlines treat those without status like crap. Sure, you'll get another flight, but when and you might be left footing the bill for the hotel for the night.
> Sure, you'll get another flight, but when and you might be left footing the bill for the hotel for the night.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Which airline will not cover hotel costs if you are missing a connection because of their fault? Is that even legal??
Weather isn't "their" fault. With United for example, unless you are 1k status, they won't cover hotels due to flight cancellations or delays due to weather. They give you a scrap of paper with "discounts on hotels". Thankfully, I am 1K, but I've seen many an irate customer in Chicago affected by this.
Since those flights are not on the same booking it's not a connecting flight and they don't have to help you. They might, but if they don't there's nothing you can do about it.
I had a pretty simple query: "What's the cheapest flight from my airport to any given airport in Japan for the next 12 months?" I didn't care which city I was heading to because I planned on visiting quite a few cities and they're all connected by the Shinkansen. I didn't care about when I'm leaving because my dates were flexible.
Skyscanner was the only one capable of answering my query. All the competition required me to provide a specific destination and the approximate travel date for any searches.
That does have a lovely UI and I'm sure that I will be checking this site in future along with Skyscanner. One of my favourite features is being able to provide a range of departure and return dates. Unfortunately it does seem to be missing flight information for FlyBe.
I looked for a flight from Manchester to Knock (MAN -> NOC) flying on 24 June, returning 27 June.
The "Calendar of lowest fares" is seriously nifty.
Kayak and Skyscanner knows about Ryanair but Expedia and clones don't. In general, Skyscanner knows about non-GDS airlines. To see whether a search engine is Ryanair-friendly search for BUD-VDA (Budapest - Ovda) as this route is a recent Ryanair invention. http://corporate.ryanair.com/news/news/150707-ryanair-announ...
Skyscanner does a very clever thing where if you place a specific query, it'll pass it on to the providers it searches, but it will also cache the result of your search internally and give you estimates for wider-ranging searches.
For instance, you can ask: "what's the cheapest flight from Country 1 to Country 2 over the coming year?" and it'll use its internal cache to give you suggested arrival/departure airports and times that you can then combine with local transportation on your own. I'm not aware of any other site that offers this.
