About Skyscanner
Here at Skyscanner, we’re on a mission to help travellers plan and book their trip with ease and confidence. With over 100 million people using us every month, we pride ourselves on being transparent, searching billions of prices for flights, hotels and car hire to help find the best deals available.
We make it all simple; once you’ve found the best flight, car hire or accommodation option for you, you book directly with the provider. Oh, and it’s free. We don’t charge you any fees in relation to any booking you make. You can read more information about us here.
How Skyscanner ranks results
We’ll always be clear and transparent in how we rank results, and we’ll provide those results in a way that is useful to you. We give you more detail below on how our ranking systems work and why you see the results in the order that you do.
This information on ranking applies only to our search results and not to sponsored links or adverts that may be included within or near search results (which are clearly recognisable as adverts). This will also not apply where travellers have modified the criteria that applies to search results, for example by using filters (e.g. if you’ve filtered by ‘direct flights’ we won’t show you indirect ones).
Our ethos is that what is good for travellers is good for Skyscanner. So when you click out from Skyscanner to book with a provider, that provider pays us commission (and that commission is never passed on to you – phew). And, except in certain circumstances, (more on which below), we don’t rank our results based on how much commission we’d get.
In certain cases, and where travellers have consented, we may provide some personalised results and this will affect the display of results. Content which does not fit the selection criteria will either not be displayed or will be ranked differently based on those criteria.
Flights
We’re all about making travel search simple. To help you along the way, we provide filters to help you narrow down all the options out there to find your perfect flight – whether that’s by time of day, airline and more. We add and remove filter options from time to time, based on what travellers tell us they want and need. The filters which our travellers search by naturally determine the ranking of results: for example, if you tell us you need a flight that arrives in time for your 9am meeting, we won’t show you any that get in later than that.
Our default ranking parameter for flight search results is “best”. This ranking algorithm takes into account a number of factors, including (i) price; (ii) speed (i.e. overall time of journey, including layovers); (iii) whether or not a flight is direct); (iv) the airline (v) departure times (vi) search criteria, e.g. date of departure, whether it is for a one-way or return flights, the flight origin and destination and the number of passengers; and (vii) what country the traveller is searching from.
We believe that these are the most useful criteria on which to sort results to deliver what travellers need. For example, we include price as a criteria as we know that price competitiveness is important to travellers and we include distance as we know that travellers prefer quicker flights.
In case of a tie in ranking between two or more different itineraries, we will randomly allocate the order of these itineraries.
You also have the option to change the default search results in our flight product so that they are ordered in a different way, such as:
- Cheapest first – flights appear in order of which is the cheapest
- Fastest first – flights appear in order of which is the fastest
- Outbound: departure time – flights appear in order of which outbound departure time is the earliest
When you select a flight itinerary, there are usually a number of providers who give us a price for that itinerary. We rank these providers in order of price, with the lowest price first. Where there is one or more provider who has the same price, we use a number of criteria to resolve any tie, including the type of itinerary offered by the provider (e.g. whether you need to do a single or multiple bookings for the itinerary, the provider type (e.g. whether the provider is an airline or an online travel agent) and our Quality Score. If there is a still a tie-break between two or more providers, we rank these providers in alphabetical order.
Accommodation
The properties that we show are default ranked by “Recommended” which takes into account factors as follows: (i) star rating; (ii) accommodation type (e.g. whether the property is a hotel, resort or hostel); (iii) location (based on proximity to city centres or key tourist attractions); (iv) customer reviews. We use these factors as we know they are important when travellers are searching for accommodation options.
You also have the option to change the default search results in our accommodation product so that properties are ordered in a different way, such as:
- Top reviews – results appear in order of which have the best reviews
- Lowest Price – results appear in order of which has the lowest price
- Most stars – results appear in order of which has the highest star rating
- Nearest first – results appear in order of proximity to certain landmarks or places
For each property for which we return a result, there will usually be several providers who give us a price for that property. You will be able to see all of these options, but we give more prominence to one of the providers based on a number of factors, including the price relative to the cheapest price and the revenue potential for Skyscanner from that provider. Where this provider does not offer the cheapest price for the selected property, we will highlight which provider has the cheapest deal. For those providers who are ranked below the most prominent option, where two or more of those providers are tied on all other criteria, the provider with the most revenue potential for Skyscanner will be ranked higher.
Car Hire
Our car hire results are displayed according to vehicle category based on: (i) ACRISS codes (that’s things like the type of car, size, fuel and transmission type);(ii) the supplier, if known, with the lowest price available for the inventory displayed; and (iii) the number of providers offering the vehicle category/supplier combination. An additional element that defines which group a provider appears under is if they offer free cancellation up to 48 hours before pick-up.
Travellers can then expand the number of providers by clicking “select” for the type of vehicle, after which results from all providers offering the vehicle/supplier combination will be displayed in order of ascending price.
We also display other key information for each result. That’s things like the underlying vehicle provider and the fuel policy (for example, if you get a full tank and return a full tank), as well as a Quality Rating (which tells you the experience of other travellers who used them). That information does not alter the ranking of results. Where providers are tied on all other criteria (e.g. where there are two identical prices), the provider with the most revenue potential for Skyscanner will be ranked higher.
Our Quality Rating
You’ll see this rating displayed as stars beside a provider’s name in some of our products. Quality Scores allow us to give actionable feedback to providers, allowing them to improve their service for travellers.
It takes into account several factors and you can read more information about our quality rating and how we use it here.
Published January 2024
