275,000 Skyscanner searches for Budapest-New York confirm huge potential for direct route

According to bud.hu, last year over a quarter of a million travellers searched Skyscanner.net, a leading global travel search engine, looking for travel between Budapest and New York, revealing a considerable potential demand for the re-start of non-stop services, previously operated by Delta and American Airlines, but not served directly since December 2011. The level of consumer interest is revealed in an analysis called “Unserved Route of the Week,” a joint analysis by Skyscanner for Business and anna.aero, the route planning news and analysis site.

However, since American Airlines vacated the route in 2011, travellers between the two cities have become accustomed to one-stops – OAG Traffic Analyser shows nearly 50 different intermediate airports were used last year, with the top three connecting options being Frankfurt/Munich (20%) – illustrating a dominance of Lufthansa’s long-haul feed drawn from Budapest, London Heathrow (13%) and Paris CDG (12%). However, the market is extremely buoyant, with 12% of Skyscanner searches for the indirect Budapest-New York services going on to be converted into ticket sales – significantly more than the 9% achieved for Skyscanner conversion/purchase rates for all direct routes available from either Budapest or New York.

Commenting on Budapest’s designation of “Unserved Route of the Week,” Kam Jandu, Chief Commercial Officer, Budapest Airport says: “Wow! This Skyscanner for Business-anna.aero analysis of the unserved Budapest-New York provides some very useful complementary data for our discussions with potential airlines. Rather than relying solely on historic data this gives us the picture of where some consumers are actually looking to fly to because the data is drawn directly from Skyscanner. With 13% growth last year, we smashed through the 10 million passenger barrier – so I’m not surprised at all that over a quarter of a million people were searching for Budapest-New York services using Skyscanner alone – this is all the proof required for an airline to re-start this city pair.”

Skyscanner for Business – what +50 million travellers want

“Skyscanner for Business” packages B2C data based on the “aspirations” of Skyscanner.net’s +50 million unique visitors per month into a suite of business products which offer comprehensive data solutions. This includes Skyscanner’s Travel Insight tool, a comprehensive, unique ‘big data’ set that can accurately predict future demand by telling you what 50 million actual real travellers want to do.

Hugh Aitken, Commercial Director, Skyscanner added: “We are pleased to be working with anna.aero to showcase our powerful data sets. Our Travel Insight tool gives businesses a competitive advantage through exposing significant market demand for many routes which are currently unserved by any airline, and which provide massive potential for airlines to consider. The Budapest-New York route pairing is a key example of this”

Source: http://www.bud.hu/