Kayak users can now book Air Canada flights on Kayak's website. It is the metasearch engine's first flight-booking option on its site. (Click left image to see a screen grab).
The new feature comes less than a year after Kayak introduced hotel-booking functionality on its site. That feature now allows users to book 150,000 of the 250,000 hotels in Kayak search results without leaving Kayak.com.
In a blog post, Kayak said, “We’ve always aimed to give you choices where to book. However, we know some of you also want the option to book without leaving our site or mobile app.
“We’ve decided the time is right to expand that choice to flights,” the post continued. “Well, at least for Air Canada. As an industry leader with an innovative tech infrastructure, Air Canada was able to work seamlessly with our team to create a comprehensive and intuitive direct booking option.”
The ability to book the flights on Kayak's mobile application will be available in the coming weeks.
Robert Birge, Kayak’s chief marketing officer, said that while the company is only adding Air Canada for now, Kayak is committed to “providing booking choices, to improving the booking process and to providing the additional choice to book directly on Kayak.”
“This is our first foray,” he said. “We’re committed to expanding that choice.”
Kayak said Air Canada will process the transaction and provide the customer service, which differs from the way Kayak enables direct booking with hotels.
Birge said Air Canada has developed an application programming interface (API) that Kayak was able to “plug into seamlessly.” It gives Kayak access to all of Air Canada's fares, ancillary services and products.
“We are starting with [an airline] that we feel is a forward-thinking company from a technological standpoint,” he said.
Kayak uses World Choice Travel, a division of Sabre Holdings, to process transactions and provide customer service for hotel bookings made on Kayak.com.
Metasearch engines typically do not offer a booking option, but act only as a conduit to online travel agencies and supplier websites. Kayak broke that mold last year when it launched hotel-booking capability.
“We know that some of our users would prefer to book directly through Kayak, and we’ve had the hotel-booking option out there for a year,” Birge said. “We’ve had a chance to understand how that’s been working for folks. We believe it’s been a success.”
Birge added that more than 12 million Kayak users have downloaded its mobile application, and that those who use it to search for flights and hotels are often redirected to a supplier site that may not be mobile-enhanced, a technological issue he called “a challenge.”
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