Fledgling metasearch engine fly.com will launch in Germany later this year as part of its ongoing expansion programme outside of North America.
Although up and running for a month or so in the UK, Travelzoo-backed fly.com officially announced its arrival in the country via a press release this morning amid a tightening of the metasearch market in recent weeks.
The addition of fly.com and TripAdvisor’s flight search into an already crowded sector is raising the stakes for new entrants as the likes of TravelSupermarket, Skyscanner and Cheapflights have a reasonably firm stranglehold on the market.
However, Travelzoo European managing director Chris Loughlin is starting the PR battle by suggesting fly.com is “cleaner, quicker and simpler to use than other search engines”.
In an email to Tnooz, fly.com general manager Brian Clark says the Travelzoo association gives it “a nice headstart in Europe” – indicating how important riding on the back Travelzoo’s weekly newsletter will be in getting the search site into the mainstream.
Fly.com is understood to have been looking for a senior figure to run the European expansion programme in recent months, but Clark says the firm is “in no hurry”.
It has brought in a number of people from Expedia and Skyscanner, says Clark.
Meanwhile, TripAdvisor wouldn’t comment on the early performance of its new flight metasearch engine in the UK. The channel launched on October 6 2009.
“We’re very pleased with the team currently in place, who come with excellent experience from past positions at travel search sites such as Skyscanner and Expedia.
It’s always good to say nice words about your product against competition.
“Cleaner”: what does that mean?
“Quicker”: are we talking seconds here? on the same display?
==> 8s for Fly.com for a London Dublin query with 446 results but the view display is a snapshot per airline
vs.
==> 15s for Kayak.co.uk for the same query but I have 292 different trips listed on one page so that in one click I can go the airline website and book
“Simpler”
On my query above, I found both sites very easy to use in fact too similar to make a real distinction
Finally, let’s look at the adoption of users and you will see Fly.com has lost its appeal with the US audience since July http://www.quantcast.com/fly.com