Escape: Innovative Flight Search Engine Review [2021]
Pandemic flight search is a hassle but not anymore with this great flight search engine!
The travel industry has seen a significant blow in the past year with a small recovery during the northern hemisphere summer season on the local level.
Intercontinental flights have been impacted the most and therefore airlines have started decreasing frequencies as well as operating on the zero-profit point levels in the terms of ticket revenue sales.
Furthermore, flight search has become useless without information about COVID-19 levels and newly imposed health and travel restrictions by country.
Not only information about country-level restrictions are important, but airline policy of fare flexibility and refund policy impacts buyers’ decision of purchasing a ticket as well as if the airline is implementing COVID-19 spread measures.
Providing additional information for risk-free travel
Therefore, flight search engine providers such as Skyscanner and Kiwi have started adding flexibility and COVID-19 spread measures tickers when flights are being searched.
What is a Flexibility ticker?
Every airline has a different refund policy which either means that the funds will be 100% refunded in case of a ticket cancellation for whatever reason or provide a voucher. If the airline is offering a 100% refund, they will also offer vouchers that can be used for future flights but with 115% of the funds.
Yes, airlines give you an additional 15% of funds for future bookings normally on any route in their network. This is a way of keeping funds on their accounts and therefore provide a ticket owner with a bonus.
What are COVID-19 spread measures?
Some of the spread measures include information about aircraft disinfection and cleaning, cabin crew safety clothing, cleaning equipment and mask requirements.
For our flight search, Lufthansa carrier flight combination has been indicated as the best option for the query.
The Skyscanner screenshot below indicates the COVID-19 measures:
Country-Specific Health and Travel Regulations
Before flight search, travelers are required to understand and fully implement required country-specific health entry regulations.
Firstly, passengers need to know their destination requirements and if the country is open to a certain way of travel. If the country is open or partially open travel is possible with certain COVID-19 testing or quarantine.
Secondly, if passengers are not flying directly they are also obligated to understand the transit policies of a certain country they are traveling through.
Lastly, they need to understand their home country regulation regarding entering the country after international travel.
To be up to date with all the requirements, constant research needs to be implemented through various sources.
Therefore, many people get demotivated in any type of international travel due to constant policy changes and uncertainty.
What if there is a platform that provides you with flexible tickets, COVID-19 airline measure implementation and up-to-date country-specific health regulations?
That would be awesome and yes it exists!
Escape — the Best Platform for Current COVID-19 Travel and Beyond
Escape, the interface map flight search platform, developed by the MIT Senseable City Laboratory in Singapore that currently incorporates Skyscanner, Kiwi, Kayak and other widely used various platforms to find the best deal.
According to professor Carlo Ratti an Escape team member:
„Escape uses the modern technologies in mapping and visualization such as Mapbox GL and Deck GL, and the application of various techniques we’ve developed in the lab over the past five years.”
How does it work?
As any normal flight search engine, it requires a starting point which is actually the only touchpoint with other search engines.
Note: It includes 100+ world currencies to purchase tickets with
From the city start point, the client can search for their potential trip as a one-way, round trip, multi-city and as a plan my trip for those who do not have any idea of where to go.
Trip dates have a broad variety of options as well:
- Exact dates
- Anytime
- This Month
- Next Month
- Next 3 months
- Next 6 months
- Flexible range
Some of them are free of charge but some require you to purchase their premium plan.
Let’s say that we are traveling from Berlin, Germany but have no idea where we would like to go, though we know that we have some strict dates and therefore search round trip.
The interactive map shows the whole world with a price range from the cheapest (green) to the most expensive (red).
Furthermore, the map has many tickers that narrow down the search
- COVID-19 information
- Price
- Direct/Indirect fligts
- Airlines
- Visa
- Popularity
- Weather
- Safety
- Things to do
- Places
- LGBT Friendly
Although there are many tickers only a couple of them are free of charge (FOC) and the rest is possible via premium subscription.
Some tickers might be interesting, but at the moment COVID-19 information is the most important one and is FOC which is awesome.
How does COVID-19 information in the Escape flight search look like?
Let’s say we are traveling from Berlin, Germany to Hurghada, Egypt and are interested in finding out if we are allowed to enter Egypt.
The interactive map will show small dots with different colors from green to red which indicate the possibility of travel.
On the left side, the tickers can be seen, below the prices and on the right current COVID-19 travel information for German passengers.
Note: The system will according to your starting point indicate that you are a citizen of the departing country.
The platform defines the latest news as well as the sources used for the summary of the information.
How does the booking process look like?
After we’ve seen that German passport holders are possible to travel to Egypt with certain restrictions, Escape offers us the cheapest flights for the given dates and destinations.
After you choose your desired flight and price the booking will be transferred from Escape to the agent site where you will be able to purchase and finish your booking.
Is the Escape platform the cheapest?
We will focus on the direct Easyjet flight from Berlin to Hurghada.
The price difference between Kayak (the cheapest) and Escape (2nd cheapest) is 3 EUR.
To find out if the flights are the cheapest on the Escape platform, we have made a small analysis of other flight search engines.
- Kayak
2. Escape
3. Easyjet
4. Skyscanner
5. Kiwi
Although Escape was not the cheapest option the difference was in 3 EUR which is due to their percentage share in the buying process — their small share of the revenue.
How is Escape monetizing itself?
As mentioned there is a small percentage in the overall ticket price that Escape uses to fund their operations.
Furthermore, the team has developed a premium service which as mentioned earlier includes various search improvements based on the
- Date interval search
- Skyscanner flight results
- Airlines
- Visa
- Popularity
- Weather
- Safety
- Things to do
- Places
- LGBT Friendly
That will benefit any traveler’s needs.
The premium plan is offered in various options where the lifetime plan works the best if you like their interface as well as additional information provided.
Is Escape the best flight search platform?
The Escape platform sure offers much very important information normally not available through a flight search engine.
Furthermore, the ease of navigation, search options and interface map are very user friendly and easy to use.
The most important current COVID-19 information is provided FOC which is the first and the most important aspect these days.
As seen in our quick pricing analysis Kayak was the cheapest option while Escape was the second but we do not find it a deal-breaker as the 3 EUR difference with such interface and COVID-19 information provided brings value.
On the other hand, the only negative side we found is that the Skyscanner flight search is in the premium plan. That would not be such a problem normally, but during these pandemic days, Skyscanner provided a ticker for flight flexibility and COVID-19 measures implemented by the airline which are not viewable through the Escape platform.
All in all, this is an amazing flight search engine that was needed for ease of navigation and important information mentioning.
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