A couple of weeks back I had done a brief comparison between few players in Indian airfare search space. This post is a follow-up to that. In the previous post, I did miss a few of them that I have covered here.
This post compares 10 different Indian travel air fare search sites. It may happen that I may have still missed out someone. With this space getting so crowded and a new launch happening literally every month, it is difficult to know all of them.
Following are Indian air fare search sites I will be considering:
- Yatra
- Arzoo
- Ezeego
- Cleartrip
- IXIGO
- makemytrip
- Indiatimes Travel
- Desiya
- Travelguru
- Travelocity
the comparison is based on following parameters and weightage:
| Sr.No | Comparison parameter | Weightage |
| 1 | Ticket Fare prices | ? / 10 |
| 2 | Flight Options given | ? / 7 |
| 3 | Destinations available | ? / 5 |
| 4 | User friendliness | ? / 5 |
| 5 | Other services | ? / 3 |
| Grand Total | ? / 30 |
Contents
Following is the search criteria used.
Travel: Roundtrip from Pune to Jaipur
Travel Date: Start Date 14th September 2007 to 16th September 2007
Passengers: 1 Adult
Search Result Page: (Click on the thumbnail below to view the search results.)
Lowest Fare: Rs. 13,566 (Rs. 7600 + Rs. 5966 taxes and Fees).
Best Flight Available : Pune to Jaipur via Mumbai / Jaipur to Pune via Mumbai
| Sr.No | Comparison parameter | Weightage |
| 1 | Ticket Fare prices | 7/ 10 |
| 2 | Flight Options given | 4 / 7 |
| 3 | Destinations available | 4 / 5 |
| 4 | User friendliness | 4 / 5 |
| 5 | Other services | 3 / 3 |
| Total Marks | 22 / 30 |
Analysis:
Ticket fare prices: I think Yatra gave a price for 13,566/- which I think is acceptable, but not cheap. They had a discount of 15% for American Express Card members for Jet Airways flight. The prices they offered were for Jet Airways.
Flight Options: Yatra gave only 2 options and their was no direct flight option available. The big disadvantage was that it would have taken more than 14 hours to reach the destination, which is unacceptable.
Destinations available: Yatra gets good marks on this. They had some destinations that I had not even heard of.
User Friendliness: Yatra has a good and easy User Interface.
Others service: They offer most of the other services that a traveler may require and hence high marks on that front.
Lowest Fare: Rs. 13,736 (Rs. 7785 + Rs. 5951 taxes and Fees).
Best Flight Available : Pune to Jaipur via Delhi / Jaipur to Pune via Mumbai
| Sr.No | Comparison parameter | Weightage |
| 1 | Ticket Fare prices | 7/ 10 |
| 2 | Flight Options given | 5 / 7 |
| 3 | Destinations available | 4 / 5 |
| 4 | User friendliness | 2 / 5 |
| 5 | Other services | 3 / 3 |
| Total Marks | 21 / 30 |
Analysis:
Ticket fare prices: Arzoo gave a price for 13,736/-similar to Yatra. The prices they offered were for Kingfisher Airlines and Jet airways.
Flight Options: Arzoo gave only 3 options and their was no direct flight option available. The good part was that the connections offered did not have too much of wait time. The overall journey time was less than 5 hours, which was excellent.
Destinations available: Arzoo offers most of the destinations in India.
User Friendliness: Arzoo scores lowly here as the user has to choose the best flight options on his own. It does not itself calculate the best option and present it to user. It also does not show the prices inclusive of taxes on initial screen. The user has to go through 2-3 screens before he gets the complete picture of prices available.
Others service: They offer most of the other services that a traveler may require and hence high marks on that front.
Lowest Fare: Rs. 13,901 (Rs. 8250 + Rs. 5651 taxes and Fees).
Best Flight Available : Pune to Jaipur via mumbai / Jaipur to Pune via Mumbai
| Sr.No | Comparison parameter | Weightage |
| 1 | Ticket Fare prices | 7/ 10 |
| 2 | Flight Options given | 5 / 7 |
| 3 | Destinations available | 4 / 5 |
| 4 | User friendliness | 3 / 5 |
| 5 | Other services | 3 / 3 |
| Total Marks | 22 / 30 |
Analysis:
Ticket fare prices: Ezeego offered a price for 13,901/-similar to previous two. The prices they offered were for Jet airways and Indian.
Flight Options: Ezeego gave good options but their was no direct flight option available. The surprising aspect was the prices of some of the options exceeded Rs. 23000/-. I am not sure how their algorithm works, but these kind of results have to be filtered out. The total flight time was around 7 hrs while going and 3 hours while coming.
Destinations available: Ezeego also offered most of the destinations in India.
User Friendliness: Ezeego was neither bad nor very user friendly. The prices displayed were quite confusing. However, I arrived at booking screen in 2 clicks.
Others service: They offer most of the other services that a traveler may require and hence high marks on that front.
Lowest Fare: Rs. 15,182 (Rs. 9225 + Rs. 5959 taxes and Fees).
Best Flight Available : Pune to Jaipur via New Delhi / Jaipur to Pune via New Delhi
| Sr.No | Comparison parameter | Weightage |
| 1 | Ticket Fare prices | 5/ 10 |
| 2 | Flight Options given | 5 / 7 |
| 3 | Destinations available | 4 / 5 |
| 4 | User friendliness | 4 / 5 |
| 5 | Other services | 2 / 3 |
| Total Marks | 21 / 30 |
Analysis:
Ticket fare prices: ClearTrip offered a price for 15,182/-, which is higher than previous three. The prices they offered were for Kingfisher Airlines only.
Flight Options: ClearTrip gave only 2 options and their was no direct flight option available. The other option was close to Rs. 19000/- which is again quite expensive. The good part however about the options given was that you did not have to change airlines and the travel time both ways was less than 5 hours, which was excellent and none of the previous sites had offered.
Destinations available: Cleartrip also offered most of the destinations in India.
User Friendliness: ClearTrip was one of the most user friendly and easy to use site. within One click the screen showed the best options after calculating the taxes.
Others service: Unlike most of the other sites ClearTrip only offered hotels other than travel booking.
Lowest Fare: Rs. 9,698 (Rs. 6548 + Rs. 3150 taxes and Fees).
Best Flight Available : Pune to Jaipur via New Delhi / Jaipur to Pune via New Delhi
| Sr.No | Comparison parameter | Weightage |
| 1 | Ticket Fare prices | 9/ 10 |
| 2 | Flight Options given | 6 / 7 |
| 3 | Destinations available | 4 / 5 |
| 4 | User friendliness | 5 / 5 |
| 5 | Other services | 1 / 3 |
| Total Marks | 25 / 30 |
Analysis:
Ticket fare prices: IXIGO offered excellent pricing much less than others – 9698/-, with completely different carriers. They offered prices for SpiceJet and Go-Air. I am not sure why other travel portals did not offer these low cost carriers. If they don’t currently, they need to do it to stay competitive. In my previous analysis, IXIGO had got me to change the prices, which I was skeptical about. But with these pricing they have justified it.
Flight Options: IXIGO was a clear winner here too. They had atleast 5 different options and all of them were below 10K mark. The travel time for best option was around 6-7 hours, which is not very good but still acceptable.
Destinations available: IXIGO also offered most of the destinations in India.
User Friendliness: IXIGO was a winner here too. They have used AJAX, so the page does not even have to load for user to get details. Very impressive.
Others service: IXIGO scores here lowly. I am not sure if they break into the category of travel portal. They are a airfare search site, and they do it perfectly.
Well done IXIGO !
Lowest Fare: Rs. 10,118 (Rs. 3998 + Rs. 6120 taxes and Fees).
Best Flight Available : Pune to Jaipur via Mumbai / Jaipur to Pune via Mumbai
| Sr.No | Comparison parameter | Weightage |
| 1 | Ticket Fare prices | 8/ 10 |
| 2 | Flight Options given | 5 / 7 |
| 3 | Destinations available | 4 / 5 |
| 4 | User friendliness | 2 / 5 |
| 5 | Other services | 2 / 3 |
| Total Marks | 21 / 30 |
Analysis:
Ticket fare prices: MakemyTrip offered an impressive price of 10118/-. The carriers offered by them were Jet Airways and Spice Jet.
Flight Options: MakeMytrip offered good options at reasonable prices. The total travel time was around 7 hours both ways which was not good, but still acceptable.
Destinations available: MakeMyTrip also offered most of the destinations in India.
User Friendliness: The biggest drawback of MakeMyTrip was, it was not user friendly at all. There was too much clutter and it was quite confusing. They really need to improve and make the whole process much simpler. Being one of the oldest in this business they still carry the look and feel of web1.0.
Others service: MakeMyTrip offered hotel bookings along with Airfare search.
Indiatimes did not have any flights available. They asked me to change my travel plans :). here is what they said:
No records found for your criteria. Please change the criteria and search.
Desiya.in seems to be undergoing some upgradation. It asked me to come back later.
Pune to Jaipur screen shot.
Jaipur to Pune screen shot.
Final Thoughts:In this comparison, IXIGO by far was the best of the lot in terms of pricing and usability. It may happen that in different sectors, other travel sites are more competitive. I have always given more importance to the usability factor. I thought ClearTrip should be mentioned here for their simplicity along with IXIGO.
Here is the final score card.
| Rank | Air fare Search Site | Score |
| 1 | IXIGO | 25/30 |
| 2 | Yatra | 22/30 |
| 2 | Ezeego | 22/30 |
| 3 | Clear Trip | 21/30 |
| 3 | Arzoo | 21/30 |
| 3 | Make My Trip | 21/30 |
| N/A | IndiaTimes travel | N/A |
| N/A | Desiya | N/A |
| N/A | Travelguru | N/A |
| N/A | Travelocity | N/A |
I hope this give you some insight on Indian online air fare booking scene.