Swiss institute for quality tests on flight search engines
If you don't want to pay more than necessary for your flight, you turn to airfare search engines. However, what many do not know: Price is significantly decisive, which search engine is chosen. The Swiss Institute for Quality Testing (SIQT) examined 16 search engines and set up 25 air travel scenarios. The astonishing search engine price differences are presented here.
None of the airfare search engines were always able to provide the best price for the flight connections tested.
Nothing new in electronic booking: The "cheapest prices" shown in each case differ from search engine to search engine, sometimes considerably. This is the result of the current study by the independent Swiss Institute for Quality Testing (SIQT), which examined a total of 16 airfare search engines. To analyse the prices, 25 flight scenarios were examined for all providers.
In the process, the SIQT testers came across price differences, some of which were extreme: For example, travel.ch showed an offer for CHF 3,744 as the cheapest option for a return flight (1 adult) from Basel to Dubai in a specified time window, while swoodoo.ch found a flight for only CHF 517,75. Potential savings: 86 percent.
The right one for domestic flights?
But even for domestic flights, it pays to use the right price search engine. A return flight (1 adult) from Zurich to Geneva was offered by fluege.ch and travel.ch for CHF 384, while swoodoo.ch was able to find a flight for only CHF 114.28. In this case, it was possible to save 70 percent by choosing the cheapest airfare search engine. In this case, choosing the cheapest airfare search engine saved an impressive 70 percent compared to the most expensive one.
On average across all flight scenarios examined in the test, the difference between the best offer from the cheapest provider and the best offer from the most expensive provider was 38 percent. However, none of the airfare search engines was always able to deliver the best price for the flight connections tested.
Swoodoo.ch managed this most frequently, followed by momondo.ch. Skyscanner.ch and Flugsuchmaschine.ch also performed comparatively well. For the air traveller, this means one thing above all: if you are really looking for the cheapest flight, you cannot avoid using several search engines.
Customer service is missing!
In terms of user-friendliness, many of the search engines examined proved to be in need of optimisation. Although the presentation of results was usually quite pleasing, the testers criticised the search options as being too limited, and the sorting and filtering of the result lists were also often not optimal. The best search and navigation was provided by swoodoo.ch, followed by eBookers.ch and momondo.ch.
Drastic deficiencies were found in the customer service. Telephone support is unusual in the industry anyway, but even an email customer service worthy of the name could only be found with a few providers. Hotelplan.ch and Swoodoo.ch were convincing. They were followed in the ranking by skyscanner.ch, Globetrotter.ch and ebookers.ch. With all the others, a serious customer service approach was no longer discernible.
Overall, Swoodoo.ch was the best at meeting the test criteria. Momondo.ch and Skyscanner.ch took second and third place, closely followed by eBookers.ch and Globetrotter.ch.
