So cheap, it's almost not fare
Cheapflights broadens search criteria, giving travelers more flexibility
Five years after taking off, airline-fare search engine Cheapflights.com has revamped its website, more than doubled in size, and added a Canadian component.
Cheapflights, based in Boston, launched its redesigned site this year, offering more flexibility in how users search for deals, allowing them to search the cheapest fares based on destination or range of dates, or sort by looking at alternatives to Logan International Airport, such as Providence's T.F. Green. The company also now tailors its newsletters based on subscribers' travel interests and departure airports. For example, it sends information about fare deals to beach destinations to beach lovers, instead of travelers who prefer colder climates.
Those changes make Cheapflights more relevant and user-friendly in a fading economy when cost is a key travel consideration, said Mike Bennett, the company's US general manager. They also provide the site's advertisers and partners a more targeted audience, he said.
The company doesn't actually book flights - it scours partners such as Orbitz or Priceline for fares and presents them to users, using a proprietary database of more than 1.5 million airfare deals. The recent upgrades also include the addition of flight and travel guides to more than 500 destinations, which are displayed on the deals page.
Cheapflights started in England 12 years ago and migrated to Boston in 2003. It had 1.9 million unique visitors in May, according to comScore Media Metrix, an online media research firm. The Boston office has grown from a staff of 12 in 2006 to 25 this year. Although the privately held company doesn't share specific numbers, its revenue has doubled year-over-year for the each of the last five years.
Cheapflights opened a Canadian site and office in 2007, which the company plans to expand this year by adding more features to the site and more employees on the ground, said chief executive Chris Cuddy. It also plans to launch a site in an unnamed European country this year.
One of the key components of the site's upgrade was putting all three countries on a common platform, Bennett said. That means changes to each site can be made locally, rather than through a central office in England, speeding up changes
Cheapflights has several features which help distinguish it from similar search engines, said Carroll Rheem, research director for Phocuswright, a travel research firm based in Sherman, Conn.
The site's ability to find fares through what amounts to a blind search - allowing consumers to search for the best fare regardless of when the flight is or where it's heading - makes it unique, Rheem said. As does the fact that it allows searches by city pairs: Boston to Milwaukee, for example. And its ability to grab prices for a wide range of dates also sets it apart, she said.
"It's like the impulse purchase at the grocery story," Rheem said. "They're trying to convince consumers who weren't sure they could travel that they have some options and ideas. What they do particularly well is helping people find the cheap flights."
The economic downturn, coupled with airlines beginning to charge for basics and amenities that once were complimentary, could be a boon to Cheapflights and other fare search engines, she said.
Indeed, 92 percent of flight reservations so far this year have been online, up from 87 percent of reservations in 2007, J.D. Power & Associates' 2008 North American airline satisfaction survey found.
"Online travel is definitely here to stay," Rheem said. Cheapflights and others like it "will play an important niche and have a valid business model for a certain segment of consumers going forward."
