Skyscanner app flies past 10m downloads

A travel search app, which allows users to find cheap flights while on the move, has achieved 10 million downloads.

The free app from Skyscanner was first launched for iPhone in February 2011 and is available on iPad, Android, Windows and BlackBerry.

Almost a third of the 30 million monthly visits to the Skyscanner site come via mobile, while in some markets in Asia more than half of visits are via mobile devices.

The app, which is is available in more than 30 languages, has been updated for Android devices by allowing users to add flight searches onto a widget, which can be added to the phone’s desktop to monitor price changes or get inspiration for destinations for a specific month or date.

The most popular destination search for mobile users is the ‘Everywhere’ option which allows users to browse all destinations in order of price to visit in a given week, month or year.

Skyscanner chief executive Gareth Williams said: “One of our main goals is to let people plan their travel when they want, where they want and how they want.

“We have reached 10 million downloads of our mobile app far sooner than we had anticipated and have been overwhelmed by the positive feedback our app has received.

“We want to provide people with the most powerful and flexible travel search app that’s also very user-friendly, and looking to the future there are some really exciting developments on the horizon that we’re exploring with voice recognition tools.”

Bonamy Grimes, the firm’s co-founder and director of mobile, added: “Our mobile development team deserves so much credit for having produced a full range of the most highly rated apps in travel search.

“It’s nice to take a moment to consider how far we’ve come in little over a year and the 10 million downloads number is a great milestone for everyone at Skyscanner.”