In the last two years, many innovations have happened in the travel industry.These innovations range from website redesigns, new feature rollouts, offering differentiated customer service etc. One segment that has huge scope for innovation is – the way customers use travel websites. We have seen very different design experiences created by companies like Hipmunk, Skyscanner, UTrip, Marriott, Tourdust. The recent addition to this list is definitely “Quickairlink“.
Quickairlink is offering customers a completely new way to search flights. It’s not just a product, its an experience and that’s clearly their USP.
Users will be able to search for flights (right now limited only to the US) by selecting an airport in the map. Once the origin airport is selected, the map highlights the list of all airports connected to the origin airport. User simply have to select the destination airport and the travel path is created by the system. Map based visual flight search is different and neat.
Once the route is selected, application displays the list of all airlines that fly in the selected route. Also, the number of flights by each airline is displayed. One information that could add even more value to below screen would be displaying the price of the flight. Right now, users have to select the flight to know the price.
Users can also compare airlines that fly in the selected route. The page displays the list of all airports that each airline can fly from the origin selected. Below page displays the list of airports the airlines connect from LAX airport. The best part of below screen is, user can mouseover on an airport (say SFO) and all airlines that connect to SFO will be highlighted in Yellow.
Users will be able to see the list of services offered in any airport in the US. Quickairlink has compiled list of all car rentals, hotels, parking details, retail services in all airports. For Parking, Retail Services, Ground Access – users are directed to the airport’s website. We see huge opportunity for cross-sell related business models in below screen, hope Quickairlink has it on their product roadmap.
Overall – Quickairlink offers a simple and different way to search flights. The entire search experience is engaging (noticed minor lags and skewed popups, but that’s ok). If this kind of an experience is carried away throughout the website (even in the booking path), then it will be a big plus to the site.
Looks cool!
Pretty good. vayama.com had started off with showing begin and end destinations and the route on a map way quite a few years back when they started off. Makes it easy and intuitive.