Skyscanner Organic Growth Opportunities

Create static, data-driven pages for every major route and month combination, forecasting flight prices to help users decide the best time to buy. This play leverages over a decade of Skyscanner's historical fare data to generate unique predictive insights that are not available at a URL level on competitor sites.

Example Keywords

• “nyc to london flight price prediction october 2025”
• “when to buy flights lax to hnl april”
• “cheapest month to fly from [city A] to [city B]”
• “[route] flight price trends”

Rationale

Users are constantly searching for the optimal time to purchase flights to save money. By providing route-specific, month-by-month price forecasts, Skyscanner can capture extremely high-intent traffic and establish itself as the authoritative source for booking intelligence, directly leading to conversions.

Topical Authority

Skyscanner has immense topical authority in flight pricing. This play deepens that authority by moving beyond current prices to predictive analytics, leveraging a core, proprietary dataset. It directly answers one of the most critical questions in the user's booking journey.

Internal Data Sources

Utilize the internal database of over 10 years of historical fare data. This can be fed via an API to an LLM to summarize trendlines, calculate a price volatility score for the route/month, and predict the best week to purchase.

Estimated Number of Pages

~2,400,000 (Covering ~200,000 high-volume routes for each of the 12 months)

Develop a comprehensive matrix of pages detailing the points/miles required for award seats across different loyalty programs for every popular route. These pages will also show the cash-price equivalent to calculate a real-time 'cents-per-mile' value, a unique feature in the SERPs.

Example Keywords

• “aa miles needed nyc to paris business class”
• “best avios redemption lax to hnl”
• “southwest points calculator den to phx”
• “calculate value of united miles for [route]”

Rationale

The frequent-flyer community is a large, high-value audience actively seeking to maximize the value of their points. By systematically providing this information, Skyscanner can capture this niche from blogs and forums, offering a superior tool that can lead to cash bookings if award value is low.

Topical Authority

While Skyscanner is an authority on cash fares, it has an opportunity to become the go-to resource for award travel intelligence. This play establishes a strong foothold in a lucrative sub-niche, building authority and trust with a highly engaged user base that competitors like Kayak and Google Flights ignore.

Internal Data Sources

Combine data from loyalty program award charts (can be uploaded as a knowledge base), live award-seat availability feeds from partners, and the live Skyscanner cash-fare API. This trifecta of data allows for a unique and defensible 'ROI' calculation.

Estimated Number of Pages

~1,100,000 (Covering ~110 major loyalty programs across ~10,000 popular routes)

Generate data-rich scorecards for every major route and season, detailing historical flight delay percentages, cancellation rates, and weather impacts. These pages address a key traveler anxiety and provide actionable data not found on competitor sites.

Example Keywords

• “nyc to lax flight delay statistics december”
• “cancellation rate jfk to lhr august”
• “least delayed flights chicago to orlando”
• “on-time performance for [airline] on [route]”

Rationale

Travelers, especially business travelers or those with tight connections, are concerned about reliability. By quantifying the risk of disruption for a specific route and time of year, Skyscanner can build immense trust and guide users toward more reliable options, increasing booking confidence and conversion rates.

Topical Authority

This play expands Skyscanner's authority from 'price' to 'overall travel intelligence'. By providing unique On-Time-Performance (OTP) data, the site becomes an indispensable resource for planning the practical aspects of a trip, creating a strong competitive moat.

Internal Data Sources

Leverage historical on-time-performance (OTP) logs from airline and data provider feeds. This data can be combined with historical weather data (METAR) for the corresponding routes and times to provide a comprehensive reliability score.

Estimated Number of Pages

~550,000 (Covering ~275,000 high-traffic routes across different seasons or months)

Create a hub page for every passport type in the world, detailing all the visa-free, eVisa, and visa-on-arrival countries a holder can visit. Uniquely, these pages will be layered with live data showing the cheapest upcoming flights from the user's region to those destinations.

Example Keywords

• “visa free countries for filipino passport 2025”
• “where can us green card holders travel without visa”
• “jamaican passport evisa destinations”
• “cheapest flights to visa free countries for [nationality]”

Rationale

The question 'Where can I travel?' is one of the most fundamental, high-volume search queries in travel. By answering it authoritatively and then immediately providing a scannable, bookable list of flight options, Skyscanner can capture users at the very beginning of their inspiration phase and guide them directly into the booking funnel.

Topical Authority

This play establishes Skyscanner as an authority on travel logistics beyond just flights. While competitors and government sites offer static lists, Skyscanner's unique ability to merge visa data with live pricing data provides a vastly superior user experience and solidifies its position as a comprehensive travel tool.

Internal Data Sources

Integrate data from a visa database like Timatic/IATA with the internal Skyscanner fare API. This allows the creation of dynamic tables that show destinations filterable by visa requirement, flight price, and flight time.

Estimated Number of Pages

~32,000 (Covering ~160 passport types, each with a list of ~200 possible destinations)

Develop targeted guides for what to do during a layover at every major international airport, segmented by duration (e.g., 4, 6, 8+ hours). These pages answer a common traveler pain point by providing actionable itineraries, visa info, and details on airport amenities.

Example Keywords

• “things to do during layover in icn”
• “do i need a visa for 8 hour layover in doha”
• “best lounges jfk layover 4 hours”
• “[airport code] 6 hour layover guide”

Rationale

Layover queries represent a huge volume of mid-funnel search traffic from users who have already booked a flight but are seeking to optimize their journey. By providing the best resource for this query, Skyscanner builds significant brand loyalty and captures an audience that competitors are ignoring, opening opportunities for ancillary revenue (lounge passes, tours).

Topical Authority

This play positions Skyscanner as a helpful expert for the entire travel journey, not just the booking. It builds authority in airport logistics and the traveler experience, creating a resource that will attract links and be shared widely among travel communities, moving beyond being a simple transactional site.

Internal Data Sources

Combine several data sources: an internal or third-party airport amenities database, stop-over visa requirement tables, geo-location data for nearby attractions, and live inventory for bookable services like lounges.

Estimated Number of Pages

~75,000 (Covering ~3,000 global airports, each with ~5 layover-duration brackets and multiple content variations)

Improvements Summary

Expand and enrich thin route pages with targeted keywords, unique data, and structured content to move them from page 2 to page 1. Strengthen internal linking, add supporting blog content, and optimize for featured snippets and schema.

Improvements Details

Tasks include building out each route page to 800-1,200 words with flight time, price trends, and FAQs using data from Skyscanner APIs. Add secondary keywords like 'cheap flights', 'direct flights', and 'flight duration', and implement schema for FAQs and flight details. Improve internal linking with widgets, hub pages, and contextual blog links, and create supporting articles such as 'Best time to book' and airport guides.

Improvements Rationale

Current route pages are thin, lack keyword diversity, and have weak internal links, causing low rankings despite low competition. Adding depth, relevant modifiers, and structured data will better match user intent and Google's Helpful Content criteria, while improved internal linking and supporting content will increase authority and visibility. These changes are expected to drive more organic traffic and conversions from high-intent users searching for specific flight routes.