Web platformBooking & travelOriginal by Skyscanner
Instead of selling tickets, Skyscanner is a metasearch engine that compares airline and travel agency fares on one screen. Users find the cheapest option and are redirected to the relevant site to buy. Features such as "Everywhere" search, a monthly fare calendar and price alerts have turned it into a discovery tool for flexible travellers.
Building something similar requires a powerful backend built on fare aggregation, normalisation and caching. Fares coming from airline and agency partner APIs are merged, deduplicated and ranked quickly. A partner referral infrastructure for click and sales tracking, a partner panel, SEO-friendly route pages and a mobile app are the main parts of the scope.
How Skyscanner works: the core user flow
How many apps and dashboards do you need?
Search site and mobile app
The interface where users compare flight, hotel and car prices and are redirected to the seller.
Partner panel
The panel where airlines and agencies monitor integration status, clicks and sales performance.
Admin and data panel
The panel for managing supplier settings, price quality, SEO pages and revenue reports.
Critical features of a product like Skyscanner
Fare aggregation and deduplication
Matches the prices of the same flight from different sellers and lists them under a single result.
"Everywhere" discovery search
Ranks the cheapest destinations by budget without choosing a destination.
Fare calendar and chart
Daily lowest fares in a month view along with the price trend.
Price alerts
Sends an email or push notification when the fare changes on a tracked route.
Referral and sales tracking
Tracks clicks to partner sites and enables cost-per-click or cost-per-acquisition billing.
Price accuracy checks
Measures whether the displayed price matches the price on the seller's site and demotes suppliers that deviate.
What goes into the first version, what comes later
First version (MVP)
- Flight search with fares aggregated from a few suppliers
- Result filtering and sorting
- Redirects to partner sites and click tracking
- Fare calendar
- SEO-friendly route pages
Later releases
- "Everywhere" search and discovery mode
- Price alerts and a mobile app
- Hotel and car rental verticals
- Price forecasts and "book now or wait" advice
Modules and how the budget is calculated
The budget is calculated with 360 SOFT’s pricing model from the modules below, about 26 screens and the project’s complexity: roughly 152 person-days for the full scope and 94 person-days for the first version. Every module you drop lowers the budget directly.
| Module | Phase |
|---|---|
| Sign-up, login, social login | First version |
| User profile and settings | First version |
| Admin dashboard | First version |
| Advanced search and filters | First version |
| Email / SMS notifications | First version |
| Push notifications | First version |
| Reporting and analytics | Later release |
| Multi-language | First version |
| Content management / blog | First version |
| Third-party API integration | First version |
Hosting, SMS, map APIs, app store accounts and payment-provider fees are separate items. Maintenance and improvements (optional): €500 / month. We send a fixed written price within 24 hours after a free discovery call.
The hard parts
Data volume and speed
Every search means querying dozens of suppliers; parallel requests, timeouts and progressive result display are required.
Balancing cache and freshness
Caching lowers costs, but stale prices erode trust; route-based freshness rules must be set up.
Supplier agreements
Airlines and agencies only provide data under a partnership agreement; finding suppliers early on takes business development work.
Business model
In the metasearch model, revenue comes from a cost-per-click fee for clicks sent to seller sites or a commission on completed sales. Sponsored results, airline and hotel advertising, destination marketing campaigns and data products are additional revenue sources. Users pay nothing, which makes it easier to grow traffic and add partners.
Get a free quote for your project
Let us scope it together and send a fixed written quote within 24 hours. NDA on request; you own the source code.
Choosing a company to build an app like Skyscanner
Most people searching “website like skyscanner” are really looking for a reliable app development company. When comparing quotes, check four things:
- Can you try similar products they have shipped, in the stores or live?
- Are the source code, design files, servers and store accounts transferred to you by contract?
- Do they show a working demo every two weeks, with written scope and acceptance criteria?
- Are maintenance, scaling and GDPR/security costs written into the quote?
Copyright and trademarks
A business model and features are generally not protected on their own, but the Skyscanner name, logo, interface design, content and source code are. That is why we build a product with similar functionality but your own brand, design and code. This is not legal advice; we recommend a trademark search before launch.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to build a website like Skyscanner?
A first version of a flight metasearch working with a few suppliers can be ready in a few months. The pace of supplier agreements and data quality are the main factors that set the timeline.
Does a metasearch site sell tickets?
No; users are redirected to the airline or agency site to buy. That makes travel agency licensing requirements lighter, but partnership contracts and consumer law still need to be considered.
Are there copyright or trademark issues?
The metasearch model is free to use; the Skyscanner name, logo, design and content may not be copied. This information is not legal advice.
How do you get fare data?
You sign partnership agreements with airlines and agencies to receive APIs or data feeds. Aggregator providers can offer a quick route at the start; scraping data without permission carries both legal and technical risk.
