Managing Partner API Latency

Search Session Speed is a Key Indicator of a Good Traveller Experience. The majority of this is Partner API Latency.

How long it takes to return all itineraries and pricing options to our travellers is a key indicator of how good the traveller experience is when using Skyscanner.

To provide a good traveller experience, Skyscanner aims to show a completed search in under 15 seconds. To meet this figure, and to account for latency in Itinerary Construction, we ask the majority of Partner’s API responses to be returned in less than 10 seconds.

API Latency Impacts What Pricing Options are Displayed on Skyscanner

To help mitigate Partner API latency we use a series of Machine Learning models to reduce the likelihood that travellers are waiting for slow results they are unlikely to choose.

These Machine Learning models use a variety of parameters to predict when all the relevant results have been returned throughout the search polling and may decide to show completed search results to a traveller and load the slower returning partner responses in the background onto our booking panel. The main parameter it considers is the % of partners returned quotes in a search.

It is worth noting that because of the complexity of the parameters and the changing nature of flight search, even similar searches can be stopped at different times. This is true for every search/partner/market. We could not influence this for a specific partner, route, or market.

API Latency Impacts Partner Revenue
We can see from extensive testing that Partners returning competitive pricing options with slower API response time are more likely to be removed from the Search Results and lose a booking to a faster Partner, even if the other faster Partner was less competitive. This significantly negatively impacts slower Partner’s revenue whilst positively impacting faster Partners.

How can Partners monitor their API Latency?
Partners can track their latency and how it compares to the market average in the Integration section of the partner portal under API Health.