How does Skyscanner determine the "best" itinerary order?

For a simple one way search, our partners can provide hundreds of options. The result can be a very large list of itineraries for a given search which can be daunting for our travelers!

We therefore present travelers with a ranked set of itineraries, with the "Best" itineraries at the top of the page:

The "Best" sort order is now the default display to our users when they first perform a search. This sort order is based on:

• First, the highest itinerary score, which depends on:
  • The itinerary's price relative to the cheapest itinerary in the search results
  • The itinerary's duration relative to the fastest itinerary in the search results
    >>>please note that there is an additional penalty for itineraries with self transfers, and these will therefore rank lower. 
• If multiple itineraries have the same quality score, we then organize them by the lowest price, shortest duration, and earliest outbound time.

So our partners' results with the lowest prices, shortest duration, and earliest outbound time will be ranked higher as "Best".

It is worth noting that these characteristics are of the itinerary itself and not on certain airline or OTA partners. This is true for every search/partner/market so we would not be able to influence it for a specific partner, route, or market.