Skyscanner Wants to Be Instagram-Like in Selling Flights

Online flight shopping has been stuck in the doldrums. A case in point is Skyscanner, which just updated its logo but continues to essentially show the same drop-down menus and limited information on flights today as it did five years ago. But change is in the works. In the past year, more sophisticated flight shopping has shifted from airline talking points to actual practices at business travel booking services like TripActions. So why are the Skyscanners, Expedias, Googles, and other travel sellers of the world slow to catch up? Airline industry disagreement over what data to show, the high upfront costs of building new tools, and haggling over commissions have kept the flight shopping interfaces stuck in the past. Yet several industry players are now pushing to bring new flight shopping approaches within reach of many larger household-name online travel agencies. Skyscanner, the price-comparison search service owned by Ctrip — soon-to-be-renamed Trip.co