Kiwi.com 2022 Review
GLOBAL
Kiwi.com’s comprehensive view of global flight content, shows 2022 as the return of normality after the pandemic, seeing not only the return in travel interest but an increase in demand as consumers make up for lost travel time. Bookings made in 2022 globally have overtaken the pre-pandemic 2019 volumes* by 53%.
The number of passengers that booked on Kiwi.com during the year so far (to 1 Dec 22) made a total of 9.2 million – an increase of 135% compared to last year and 244% compared to 2020.
Searches made on a global scale at Kiwi.com are at 31 billion compared to the 20.4 billion made in the previous year. The top destinations searched were London, Istanbul, Barcelona, Bangkok and Paris.
The most traffic came to Barcelona–El Prat, Kuala Lumpur International, London Stansted, Vienna International and Budapest Ferenc Liszt International airports, which were the most booked airports to fly to in 2022**.
Destinations preference
While the United States were consecutively on top in previous years, the travel restrictions pulled them down in 2022. Turkey, which appeared in the top five last year due to becoming the main connection hub during the pandemic, with the re-opening of other major hubs across the globe, dropped to eighth place this year.
On the other hand, South-East Asian destinations that had strict restrictions during the pandemic and were late to recover, started to hit top positions in 2022, a trend that is even more visible for 2023.
Top ten booked countries and cities:
Short-haul flights (0 – 1499km) and medium-haul flights (1500 – 3999km) are making up a 91% of the total flights booked in 2022 on Kiwi.com, with short-haul holding a share of 54% and medium-haul 37%. Long-haul flights (4000km+) made up a total of 9% of this year’s total bookings.
Ticket prices
While a drop in prices was recorded in 2020 and 2021, this year was marked by a return to pre-pandemic prices and even slightly higher prices when it comes to medium and long-haul flights.
“Last year, the demand for long-haul flights on Kiwi.com was one-third of 2019 demand globally. This year we see long-haul meeting the pre-pandemic levels by 90%. The increased demand and the increased fuel price results in more expensive tickets. Shorter flights are less affected as the fuel is a smaller part of the ticket cost. On longer flights, the majority of the ticket cost is for fuel, and this difference in price becomes visible,” says Eliška Řezníček Dočkalová, Director of Customer Experience at Kiwi.com.
Travel behavior
The average booking window this year – the time in advance the travelers book their tickets – has increased compared to last year, which marked a lack of confidence in travel. In comparison to last year’s 21 days, this year the average booking window makes 27 days with one in five (21%) booking less than three days in advance, 10% four to six days in advance, 16% one to two weeks in advance, 11% two to three weeks in advance and 30% three weeks to two months in advance. The rest of the bookings were made over two months in advance. In 2019, the booking window was 34 days prior to the departure of the flights.
The time passengers who book return flights on Kiwi.com choose to stay at their destination hasn’t seen a big difference. The most popular options in 2022 remain short getaways of up to three days – 41%, followed by slightly longer getaways of four to six days – 28% and longer trips of one to two weeks – 22%.
The month with the most bookings made was May. In total 10.6% of 2022 bookings were made during May, with the busiest booking day being 10 May. When it comes to travel – the busiest travel month was September, the busiest travel week was the week of 12 September and the busiest travel days were 16, 23 and 30 September. The most popular day and time to book flights was on Monday, 20:00.
Kiwi.com customers visited in total over 200 countries and 3000 cities. Over 200 nationalities booked their trips in 2022. Those traveling mostly were Americans, British citizens, Spanish, Italians and Germans.
So far in 2022, 18,161,145,639 km were traveled by Kiwi.com travelers – a number that is equivalent to 453,235 trips around the Earth.
EUROPEAN
Flights from Europe this year are seeing a similar development. Bookings have grown 65% compared to 2019, while searches are almost at 15 billion with most searched destinations being Barcelona, London, Istanbul, Paris, Palma de Mallorca, but also overseas destinations such as Bangkok, Dubai and New York.
While searches show an interest in further distance destinations – this is not reflected in bookings European passengers made. Spain and Italy, on the country level, are holding the top spot for three years, and so far a similar trend can be seen for 2023 as well. They are followed by other big European countries such as the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, while in the case of 2022, Poland also appeared in the top five.
On the city-level, Barcelona is back in the top three after dropping out of it in the past two years.
Top five destinations booked – development through the years:
Most booked European airports are Barcelona–El Prat, London Stansted, Lisbon Portela, Vienna International and Budapest Ferenc Liszt International.
Similarly to global trends, most of the bookings were for short and medium-haul flights. The short-haul flights made up more than half of the total flights coming from Europe at 56%, the remaining 44% was from medium-haul flights in the majority, followed by long-haul.
Prices in Europe saw minor increases compared to 2021 and 2020, however, apart from long-haul flights, they are still cheaper than in 2019.
European travel behaviours
The time in advance European travelers book their flights has increased by six days compared to 2021, making a total of 28 days, but nine days less than in 2019. Almost one in ten (18%) of travelers book their trips less than three days in advance, while 32% are now booking from three weeks to two months in advance showing the rise in travel confidence. Then there is 9% who book four to six days in advance, 16% one to two weeks and 11% two to three weeks.
Similarly to the global stats, European travelers booking return flights, mainly go for three types of trips: those that last up to three days (41%), four to six days (28%) or one to two weeks (23%).
Kiwi.com data shows that in Europe, most travelers booked their trip on the 20 April, while the day Kiwi.com saw the most travelers was on 1 July. The day and time most Europeans booked their flights was on Mondays at 20:00.
In total European travelers using Kiwi.com to book their travel visited more than 200 countries and 2000 cities.
Over 200 nationalities traveled from and within Europe a total of 9,499,997,948 km, with British, Italians, Romanians, Germans and French booking tickets more often.
*For 2019, 2020, 2021: bookings made from 1 January – 31 December to travel whenever
For 2022: bookings made from 1 January – 1 December to travel whenever
** Bookings made whenever to travel during the mentioned year
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About Kiwi.com
Kiwi.com is a leading global travel tech company headquartered in the Czech Republic, employing over 1,500 people worldwide. Kiwi.com’s innovative algorithm enables users to find better route options and prices other search engines can’t see, performing 2 billion price checks per day across 95% of global flight content. 100 million searches are carried out every day on Kiwi.com’s website and an average of over 60,000 seats are sold daily.
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