Kayak Flies into Europe
By Darren Cronian on Tuesday, December 5th, 2006

Just a quick blog post before I head off to do the full time job that pays the bills! US-based Kayak.com have launched their flight search engine in Europe. Kayak UK, searches 100+ travel sites to find you the best deal on flights.

Kayak Flies into Europe

No mention when the hotel and car rental search will be introduced - More information to come when I’ve had a play around with the site, but check it out for yourself and let me know what you think.

Update - The design is very dull, but I’ve had a play around with the search, and found the results to appear quickly, and it allowed me to filter out flights I wasn’t interested in, i.e. I wanted a direct flight to with Qantas, between 9am and 3pm.


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16 responses to “Kayak Flies into Europe”

mikeyboy | 5 December, 2006 at 9:03 am

About time ;-)

Kevin May | 5 December, 2006 at 1:03 pm

hotel and car rental to come by the end of December.

mikeyboy | 5 December, 2006 at 1:35 pm

Yep, my work here is done ;-) adios!

Kevin May | 5 December, 2006 at 1:48 pm

we had our suspicions all along, MikeyBoy.

and to think you let Rants bleat on about how great SideStep is without stepping in……

Darren Cronian | 5 December, 2006 at 2:04 pm

….. but…

SideStep.com is great! :D ;)

I’ll let you know what I think about Kayak, when I’ve had a good rummage around tonight.

Lee Harrison | 5 December, 2006 at 10:58 pm

I’m Going to have fun testing this out compared to the consolidaters sites.
One thing always puzzles me though is when comparing sites and coming up with exactly the same flights.. ( TIME OUT LAST MINUTE TEL EL KARKOURKOURI SCORES 1-0 CHARLTON GET 3 POINTS, MY GOD A WIN AT HOME IN LAST MINUTE AGAINST BLACKBURN__)____ PARTY TIME.)
back to reality, Why for same flights are taxes so different????????

Darren Cronian | 5 December, 2006 at 11:26 pm

We love Dowie, Bring back Dowie :D

Darren Cronian | 5 December, 2006 at 11:29 pm

I’m not sure Lee.

I’ve been on the golfing range tonight, and have just got back, so I will do a proper search in Kayak and report back my response.

Hotel Blogs | 5 December, 2006 at 11:49 pm

Darren,

What is your full time job then?

About Kayak releasing a Hotel product for UK…it would take a while I think to contract the major UK booking portals to feature on the meta search engine no? Let alone the hotel/hotel chain website…

Darren Cronian | 6 December, 2006 at 6:36 am

I would imagine that all of that is already done.

They are so many flight search engines appearing now, its made me think why bother launching Kayak into the UK until you have the full product, it feels to me that its a half hearted launch, and its not exactly set the travel industry on fire with excitement.

Kevin May | 6 December, 2006 at 7:57 am

as per my previous post: hotel and car rental search is to be added by the end of the year, i.e. in three weeks time.

the features for which Kayak has been widely praised in the US are launching on the 14 December, next Monday.

these are some of the most intuitive tools on the web in travel search, and use very Web 2.0 technology like Ajax.

* Best Fare History
* Fare Graphs
* Buzz - user trends for destinations

when you see them you’ll realise that Kayak is actually very cool and the hype in part is well deserved.

you may find that Kayak has indeed “set the travel industry on fire” - there are not many sites that have launched in the US and become pacesetters for the rest of the market within 18 months.

it’s technology, especially with the graphs, etc, which you’ll see next week, is excellent. with hotels, etc, added very soon it will certainly be as functional and progressive as you current favourite, Sidestep, Mr Rants.

from an industry perspective, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the travel search/meta search battle. behind the scenes you will find that a lot of the UK sites, especially the OTAs, are watching these new players from the US very closely.

from our perspective it’s great - we get lots of fantastic stories…

klm, ed, travo

Darren Cronian | 6 December, 2006 at 8:11 am

I’m a consumer - not a travel professional. :)

All us consumers want is to find the best deals on flights, hotels and holidays quickly, without stress. Some people might be fussed with trends, graphs, I’ll leave that up to you B2B guys ;) Just give me the best deal.

I’m going to have to enforce a non jargon comment rule :D

Great points though Kev! :)

Darren Cronian | 6 December, 2006 at 8:40 am

Mikeyboy’s job here is done because his project was to get me to blog about Kayak, its taken him over seven months, but he got there in the end :D

mikeyboy | 6 December, 2006 at 11:43 am

7 months? Was it that long? Wow - doesn’t time, um, fly? ;-)

Darren Cronian | 6 December, 2006 at 11:46 am

Time goes fast when your having fun Mikey! ;)

Don’t leave us completely, I’ve enjoyed our discussions! :D

Jane Flight | 8 June, 2007 at 5:48 pm

It’s a great site - does all the hunting for you!

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