iXiGO launched anywhere to anywhere least price flight search tonight (and you hear it here first!!); by connecting all the smaller airports with their nearest regional hubs. All the other OTAs have had this feature for quite some time now, but what’s unique & first from iXiGO is that they combine flights from all carriers to present you the cheapest option possible.
Look at the comparative screenshots below…
Of particular mention are the following features:
- Least Price Search– If you wanted to fly from, say, Bangalore to Ranchi ( Ashish & my hometown 🙂 ), you can choose Air Deccan/IndiGo for the Bangalore to Kolkata / New Delhi leg and then MDLR for the New Delhi / Kolkata to Ranchi leg, and pay lots less for it since iXiGO does all the permutations & combinations for you. You do not need to pay more for a JetLite flight from Bangalore – New Delhi – Ranchi, as is the “recommended” least price on Yatra / Cleartrip / Makemytrip.
- Least Duration Search– With flight combinations, there is the additional complexity of wait times at stops. I’m sure some of you might be ready to bear Rs. 500 more for a reduced wait time of 2 hours? iXiGO has added a nice sort by feature on the “stops (time)” column to help you make this trade-off visually 🙂
- Usability Improvements – A swanky new icon legend below the “filter options” will help first-time users.
If you hail from one of smaller towns / cities in India, I’m sure your cheap flight search for a trip back home has been quite a daunting task till now. Take iXiGO for a spin, search for some “exotic” flight routes (say Coimbatore – Guwahati) and see the difference in fares.
On a side-note, ever since iXiGO has launched 2 months back, they have been releasing new features every 15 days odd. Each of these features is a gap that is not being serviced today by the Indian OTAs, but essentially not new in the travel search domain per se (check out farecast, farechase to see what I mean). However, it still is really heartening to see the entrepreneurial & innovative spirit in these folks, and it remains to be seen how long does this steam last 🙂
Poaching OTA loyals from their favourite flight search sites is the mantra for success in the crowded Indian travel domain. And the issue is very real. In-fact quite a few senior folks in my office were not aware that flight combinations is not provided by their Yatra, MMT, Cleartrip, etc today!!!
What next?
- Price comparisons within a date range, Customizable low fare / deals alerts, etc from an earlier post
- Completing the search – purchase experience on the mobile phone. iXiGO & OnYoMO have launched least price flight search on the mobile a month back, but if I have to get on the internet to purchase tickets, why would I want to search on the mobile!!!
- What do you think iXiGO should be doing next? Leave a comment here, I’ll make sure they listen 🙂
