Skyscanner opens new Edinburgh HQ as it launches app for Windows 8
Global travel search site Skyscanner has launched a Windows 8 version of its flight search app in the same week that it opened its new headquarters in Edinburgh.
The app has included a built in free-text search to make the search experience faster and more intuitive. For example users can enter "Flights to Spain next Tuesday back a week later", rather than completing several data fields, to search for flights.
It has also allowed users pin and track flight searches to their desktop through live tiles, which are updated daily, to find the best prices to a range of destinations.
Speaking on the app Bonamy Grimes, co-founder and director of mobile at Skyscanner said: “Our Windows Store app is the first time that we have incorporated free text search into the Skyscanner travel app. This is a really exciting bit of technology and helps to make travel search on the go as intuitive and easy to use as we can make it.”
The release of the free app came as the company announced it had opened its new headquarters in Edinburgh.
The company is looking to recruit around 100 additional staff to the Quartermile office to support the 150 already based in Scotland.
Skyscanner also revealed it plans to open a Glasgow office in 2013 to continue the international growth of the business, which has seen 70 per cent of Skyscanner’s income generated from outside the UK.
Gareth Williams, Co-founder and CEO of Skyscanner said: “Edinburgh is a great base for us to build from and really deserves to be known as a leading international tech hub. We’re seeing the emergence of more and more tech start-ups with ambitions on a global scale.
As a recruiter, we benefit from being in such a cosmopolitan city and having a world-leading computer science and business school on our doorstep.”