TripAdvisor Launches Flight Search Engine in the UK

October 6, 2009
by Mark Johnson

On Monday, TripAdvisor launched its award winning flight search engine in the UK offering Britons the best available flight deals on the web from a huge selection of flight itineraries. Now in beta, the search engine also includes a dynamic Fees Estimator which allows users to understand the true cost of a flight when all fees and charges have been included.

TripAdvisor discovered from a survey they conducted on 600 Britons, that 68% of British travelers were surprised by the final cost of flights due to add-ons, with 64% also not knowing what their free-baggage allowance was and 77% unaware of the varying fees charged for different payment methods.

The Fees Estimator feature was therefore designed to assist travelers in calculating and comparing the entire cost of flights from the UK to European destinations, by including charges associated with payment methods, fees on luggage and the actual price of tickets once all taxes were included.

The survey also revealed that on average Britons spend three and a half hours researching flight options across six different websites in order to find the best deal. TripAdvisor believe that their new flight search will make this a much simpler and more efficient process.

Bryan Saltzburg, general manager of new initiatives at TripAdvisor and head of the flight search engine says “After successfully launching TripAdvisor’s flight search in the U.S. and helping millions of travellers find the lowest ticket prices the most often, we wanted to bring our award-winning tool to the U.K. Now, British travelers will be able to easily search a large selection of flight choices all in one place and can use TripAdvisor’s integrated Fees Estimator to reveal the extra charges associated with their flight, so there won’t be any surprises at check-in”.