Kiwi.com
FormerlySkyPicker.com
IndustryOnline travel agency
Founded2012
FounderOliver Dlouhý
HeadquartersBrno, Czech Republic
RevenueIncrease CZK 17.2 bn.[1] (2021)
−271,811,000 Czech koruna (2021) Edit this on Wikidata
Increase CZK -0.3 bn.[1] (2021)
Total assetsDecrease CZK 1.6 bn.[1] (2021)
Total equityDecrease CZK -0.9 bn.[1] (2021)
OwnerGeneral Atlantic (53.5 %)[2]
Oliver Dlouhý (22.4 %)[2]
Number of employees
1,700
Websitewww.kiwi.com/en/

Kiwi.com (previously known as skypicker.com) is a Czech online travel agency[3] founded by Oliver Dlouhý and Jozef Képesi in 2012. Kiwi.com provides a fare aggregator, metasearch engine and booking for airline tickets and ground transportation. Its ticket search features Kiwi.com’s "virtual interlining" concept – itineraries combined from over 750 carriers, including many that do not usually cooperate in online bookings.[4]

History

The online portal skypicker.com was created in 2011. The company was founded in Brno by Oliver Dlouhý and Jozef Képesi. In 2016 the company acquired the domain name Kiwi.com for $800,000 and rebranded itself as Kiwi.com. Jiří Hlavenka was one of its first investors.[5] In 2017, Kiwi.com acquired a stake in Jaroslav Kokolus.[6] In 2018, Kiwi.com was included by Financial Times into the list of European firms with the top compound annual revenue growth in 2015-2018[7] and was titled ‘7th fastest growing company’ in EMEA according to Deloitte.[8]

As of June 2019, Kiwi.com’s main shareholder is General Atlantic.[9] Dlouhý and Képesi remain as major shareholders and continue to run the company.[10] Other shareholders are Touzimsky Airlines and Luboš Charčenko.[11]

In 2020, Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport (BUD) partnered with Kiwi.com, launched a new service, "bud:connects." The service, aimed at self-connecting passengers, seeks to minimize airport connecting times by offering assistance directly within the airport. Kiwi.com operates self-transfer desks in each of Budapest Airport's terminals to facilitate transfers between airlines.[12][13] In 2020, co-founder Oliver Dlouhy won the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2019 award.[14] In 2022, Kiwi.com got Skift IDEA Awards 2022.[15]

In December 2022, Airasia partnered with Kiwi.com to transform the carrier into the ASEAN app for travel and lifestyle.[16][17]

In 2023, Kiwi.com partnered with Bratislava Airport to assist travelers in finding destinations starting from the Slovakian hub.[18]

Services

In 2018, Kiwi.com launched NOMAD, a special multi-city travel search tool, and Tequila, a dedicated B2B platform.[19]

Along with its headquarters in Brno, Kiwi.com has offices in Prague (Czech Republic), Barcelona (Spain), Bratislava (Slovakia), Košice (Slovakia), London (United Kingdom) and Miami (USA)[20]

The company is presently one of the five biggest online air ticket sellers in Europe, with an annual turnover of approximately 1.1 billion euros in 2018.[21] The company booked around 12,000 traveler itineraries daily and employed 2000 workers during 2019.[22]

In 2022, Kiwi.com sold 50 billion CZK worth of tickets.[23][24]

Controversies

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Kiwi has been criticized for its refund policies and its customer service practices.[3][22][25][26][27][28]

According to a company spokesman, Kiwi.com does not account for COVID-19 restrictions when creating travel itineraries.[25] This has led to customers being charged thousands of dollars for flights that individuals could not legally take in light of COVID-19 travel restrictions.[25][22] The company has put up barriers to refunds for individuals who have been issued legally impossible travel arrangements after booking with the site; one couple who had been issued impossible travel arrangements was only provided a refund after Kiwi.com was contacted by a New Zealand-based news website regarding their refund practices.[25][22]

Kiwi.com books seats without standard commercial agreements, leading to cost savings for customers but also complex relations with airlines, as Kiwi doesn’t share credit card details with them and the airlines also have different refund policies.[29] These complexities became apparent when delays in refund processing led to criticism, to which Kiwi.com responded by citing airlines' slow handling of refunds.[26][3]

The Observer identified Kiwi.com as one of the companies responsible for the year's "worst customer service" after it began charging customers an additional fee for "standard" customer service, with customers who do not pay the fee having to wait longer for phone support and having no access to email support.[27]

On 14 January 2021, Southwest Airlines sued Kiwi.com, alleging that its scraping of fare information from Southwest's website was a breach of contract and that Kiwi.com's use of Southwest's logo in its search results constituted trademark infringement.[30] In response, Kiwi.com removed Southwest's logo from its search results, but continued to sell Southwest tickets despite Southwest sending Kiwi.com a series of cease-and-desist demands.[31] In December 2021, a Texas court ruled that Kiwi.com is permanently prohibited from extracting information from Southwest's website and selling its tickets without authorization.[32]

On 18 August 2021, Ryanair announced that it would no longer allow passengers who booked with Kiwi.com to board flights with Kiwi.com-issued boarding passes, stating that it could not ensure that passengers had been informed of prohibited objects when Kiwi.com completes the check-in process. In their defense, Kiwi.com stated that their own boarding passes contain all of the information that Ryanair would offer on their boarding passes, with a representative stating that, “all the information is the same, just the colours are different.”[33][34] Later, on 27 August, following a lawsuit by Ryanair, the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic ruled in favor of Kiwi.com, stating that Kiwi.com had the right to conduct business after overturning an earlier ruling by a regional court which had instructed Kiwi.com to adjust information according to Ryanair’s terms and conditions, and to share customers’ correct contact information as well as their payment details.[35]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Annual report of Kiwi.com s.r.o. for calendar year 2021
  2. 1 2 Company register at or.justice.cz, company ID 29352886, Kiwi.com s.r.o., Netherlands-registered General Atlantic PH11 B.V. owns 53.5 %, accessed 2019-10-10
  3. 1 2 3 Mzezewa, Tariro (3 April 2020). "Why Is Getting a Refund From an Online Travel Agency So Hard?". The New York Times.
  4. ↑ "Kiwi.com in talks to raise funds for next leg of travel". Reuters. 23 May 2017.
  5. ↑ "Inside Interview: Behind the $800,000 Purchase of Kiwi.com". NamePros.
  6. ↑ Beránek, Jan. "HN: Brněnské Kiwi.com brzy přivítá nového investora". Lupa.cz (in Czech). Retrieved 2020-02-27.
  7. ↑ Kelly, Maxine (2020-03-02). "FT 1000: the fourth annual list of Europe's fastest-growing companies". Financial Times. Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  8. ↑ "Deloitte announced 2017 Technology Fast 500 EMEA ranking". Deloitte Lithuania. Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  9. ↑ Fox, Linda. "Kiwi.com takes big investment as General Atlantic becomes majority owner". PhocusWire. Retrieved 4 June 2019.
  10. ↑ "Hotovo. Kiwi.com patří americkému fondu, Dlouhý zůstává". Forbes. 3 June 2019.
  11. ↑ "Veřejný rejstřík a Sbírka listin - Ministerstvo spravedlnosti České republiky". or.justice.cz. Retrieved 2020-02-27.
  12. ↑ Events, UKi Media & (2020-02-05). "Kiwi.com and Budapest expand bud:connects program". Passenger Terminal Today. Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  13. ↑ Finlay, Mark (2020-02-03). "Budapest Airport Partners With Kiwi To Simplify Non-Connected Transfers". Simple Flying. Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  14. ↑ "EY Podnikatelem roku 2019 České republiky je Oliver Dlouhý, zakladatel globálního start-upu Kiwi.com s.r.o." www.ey.com (in Czech). Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  15. ↑ Heidkamp, Matt (2022-08-10). "Skift IDEA Awards 2022: Meet the Shortlist". Skift. Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  16. ↑ "Airasia.com Transforms into Super App by Establishing Strategic Partnership with Kiwi.com". www.mzv.cz. Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  17. ↑ "airasia Super App now selling tickets on 700+ airlines to 3,000+ destinations". Japan Today. 2021-11-06. Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  18. ↑ "Kiwi.com makes Bratislava booking easier". www.airportsinternational.com. 2023-07-05. Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  19. ↑ "Kiwi.com launches fully integrated booking tool for Tequila users". partners.kiwi.com. 2019-10-02. Retrieved 2020-02-27.
  20. ↑ "Locations – Jobs at Kiwi.com". jobs.kiwi.com. Retrieved 2023-05-25.
  21. ↑ "Hádky kvůli prodeji Kiwi skončily, dospěl jsem, říká zakladatel Dlouhý a zahájil expanzi do Číny". Hospodářské Noviny.
  22. 1 2 3 4 Thornber, Laura (11 December 2020). "Passenger 'blocked' from contacting flight booking site Kiwi.com after system glitch: 'I tried every mechanism I could to speak to someone'". Stuff.co.nz.
  23. ↑ "ChatGPT může zlepšit zákaznickou zkušenost, říká šéf Kiwi Dlouhý". E15.cz (in Czech). Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  24. ↑ Brejčák, Peter (2023-06-26). "Udělali jsme tlustou čáru za covidem, říká Oliver Dlouhý. Kiwi.com loni prodalo letenky za 50 miliard". CzechCrunch (in Czech). Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  25. 1 2 3 4 Thornber, Lorna (3 December 2020). "'Setting you up to fail': NZ couple issued 'impossible' flight itineraries by popular booking site Kiwi.com". Stuff.co.nz.
  26. 1 2 Ross, Eric (6 April 2021). "News 5 Investigates: Getting refunds after travel impacted by COVID-19". KOAA. Retrieved 20 April 2021.
  27. 1 2 Tims, Anna (27 December 2020). "In the year of Covid, the awards for worst customer service go to..." The Observer. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  28. ↑ "Kiwi.com, Inc. | Better Business Bureau® Profile". www.bbb.org. Retrieved 2021-04-16.
  29. ↑ Tims, Anna (5 October 2020). "Airline passengers 'wait for refunds despite agents being repaid'". The Guardian.
  30. ↑ Neuburger, Jeffrey D. (21 January 2021). "Southwest Airlines Sues to Stop Web Scraping of Fare Information". The National Law Review.
  31. ↑ Silk, Robert (3 February 2021). "Facing lawsuit, OTA pulls Southwest logo -- but keeps selling its tickets". Travel Weekly.
  32. ↑ Tabacco, Christina (29 December 2021). "Court Enters Permanent Injunction Against Kiwi.com in Southwest Airlines Data Scraping Case". Law Street.
  33. ↑ Boon, Ton (18 August 2021). "Ryanair Branded 'Evil' For Barring Kiwi.com Passengers From Flights". Simple Flying.
  34. ↑ "Ryanair Says it Will NOT Accept Boarding Passes Issued by Kiwi.com". prague morning. 19 August 2021.
  35. ↑ "Czech Constitutional Court Rules in Favour of Kiwi.com in Dispute with Ryanair". prague morning. 30 August 2021.
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