How to transform the travel sector by leveraging technology and innovation: A conversation with Skyscanner and Amadeus

Skyscanner started out as spreadsheet in Edinburgh back in 2003 with the simple aim of making it easier for travelers to search and compare flight options. Today, Skyscanner connects over 110 million users in 180 countries to more than 1,200 flight, hotel and car hire partners every month.

Amadeus’ trajectory started 16 years earlier, in 1987. Since then, Amadeus’ history has been a success story of growth and internationalization linked to innovation. Amadeus has an ongoing commitment to providing innovative and advanced technology to support the evolution of the travel and tourism sector and make the experience of travel better for everyone, everywhere.

In 2007, Skyscanner and Amadeus started working together, the beginning of a collaboration focused on improving the experience for travelers globally and covert bookings. Today, we speak with Phil Donathy, Product VP – Flights Marketplace, Skyscanner, and Alessandro Lodigiani, Vice President, Sales, Metasearch and Digital Players, Amadeus, about the evolution of this partnership, what we’ve accomplished together, how it has enhanced the traveler experience, and their shared vision for the future of travel.

How are Amadeus and Skyscanner leveraging technology to create seamless travel experiences?

Alessandro Lodigiani, Amadeus: Amadeus is a global travel technology company, providing IT solutions and services to airlines, airports, hotels, travel sellers, corporations, etc. Our mission is to make the experience of travel better for everyone. But we only progress as an industry by working together, that’s why it is so important to collaborate with partners such as Skyscanner. Our collaboration aims to integrate advanced technologies to streamline the travel process, making it more efficient and enjoyable for travelers. By combining our strengths, we can offer faster, more accurate search results and real-time pricing and availability to the travelers.

Phil Donathy, Skyscanner: Exactly. Skyscanner helps millions of travelers find and book their next trip. Making use of the latest technology, Skyscanner simplifies the complexity of travel – searching more than 100 billion prices every day, ensuring travelers see the best options for flights, hotels, and car hire all in one place. Our platform is designed to make travel planning easy and accessible for everyone, and to connect our airline and OTA partners to our engaged global audience. We’re focused on enhancing the travel experience by providing users with relevant, personalized and transparent options, ensuring that travelers have accurate content and prices, and seamless search experience. As a result, we excel at providing search and comparison capabilities for our travelers, making us a valuable brand and performance channel for our partners. Amadeus’ MetaConnect solution is one of the tools that empowers us in doing just this across our global marketplace.

How does this partnership contribute to innovation in the travel ecosystem?

Phil Donathy, Skyscanner: By combining our expertise and technology, we’re able to lead with innovative solutions such as Amadeus MetaConnect solution, to meet the needs of our travelers and partners. Our mutual focus is on making the travel experience more efficient, personalized, and transparent. We are always looking for new ways to create a more seamless user experience that benefits the traveler and ultimately boosts conversion for our partners.

Alessandro Lodigiani, Amadeus: We’re leveraging our collective strengths to enhance the experience of travel. It is only by working together we can properly advance. We are proud to say that our strong position in the middle of the travel ecosystem has played a part in helping Skyscanner to grow and succeed, and the tight partnership we have provides invaluable insights that helps us to constantly meet new needs and make the changes that transform travel.

Can you share some specific improvements in traveler experience resulting from this collaboration?

Alessandro Lodigiani, Amadeus: One example is our collaboration around the Amadeus MetaConnect solution, which we have worked together on since 2007, and that has allowed Skyscanner to scale their business. MetaConnect provides search results for over 100 airlines at once, and presents search results that match the information on the many airlines’ websites. This gives travelers more accurate offers at hand, which again builds trust and loyalty. It is a complex technology, but supports greatly the simplification and enhancement of the traveler experience when used by Skyscanner.
Phil Donathy, Skyscanner: Indeed, one of the key improvements is the speed and accuracy of search results. Travelers expect coherence between what they initially search for and what they can book in the end.  And our travelers can now access real-time pricing and availability more easily, making their planning process smoother. This helps breed both confidence and trust in our travelers.

At Skyscanner, we are on a mission to help travelers plan and book trips with ease and confidence, and we know they are often looking for the best prices when looking for flights. We aim to provide a best-in-class, insight-driven brand-building experience for partners to drive more qualified traffic and more bookings. Our partnership with Amadeus and the Amadeus MetaConnect solution help ensure our visitors can see all possible options in one place. Combined with this, we know that Amadeus focuses every day on the same metrics that matter to Skyscanner – coverage, speed and accuracy.

What is the broader impact of this collaboration on the travel industry, and what does the future hold?

Alessandro Lodigiani, Amadeus: We’re committed to continuing our work on innovative initiatives. Our vision is that technology has a key role to play in the transformation of the travel industry; it is even more relevant than ever in delivering better experiences to travelers. All the major technology trends, whether it’s artificial intelligence (AI), the cloud or others, are poised to have a significant impact on travel. Last year, we conducted a   research among travel industry leaders ,  and Generative AI was cited as a top priority for the next year by 46%, ahead of any other technology. As a leading travel technology company, Amadeus recognizes the immense potential of Generative AI to improve traveler experiences, streamline operations and drive innovation across the industry.

Phil Donathy, Skyscanner: Travelers will always want to have confidence they have found the very best deal for their trip and at Skyscanner, we believe in the value of partnership across the travel ecosystem to constantly improve the traveler experience.

Technology will be an enabler for this with notable improvements coming thick and fast as we see airlines adopting the next generation of offer and order management systems to unlock their retailing agenda. And of course, the way that travelers search will continue to evolve with innovation such as Generative AI. In the coming years, we will look forward to further collaboration with Amadeus and our mutual airline partners – leveraging technology to better connect travelers with the very best choice of who to book their travel with.