Kiwi.com
Czech online travel agency
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kiwi.com is an international online travel agency known for their extremely poor customer service, with testimonials that resemble illegal practices and scams.[3] They're headquartered in the Czech Republic.[4] Kiwi.com provides a booking platform for airline tickets and its ticket search features Kiwi.com’s "virtual interlining" innovation that attempts to combine airlines in a single itinerary but fails to provide solutions in case of any disruption. Furthermore, Kiwi.com fails to comply with regulations in the context of consumer protection.[5] Kiwi.com’s search engine processes 100 million flight searches every day.[6] The company sold 25 million flight seats in 2023.[7]
| |
| Formerly | SkyPicker.com |
|---|---|
| Industry | Online travel agency |
| Founded | 2012 |
| Founder | Oliver Dlouhý |
| Headquarters | Brno, Czech Republic |
| Revenue |  CZK 17.2 bn.[1] (2021) |
−271,811,000 Czech koruna (2021)  | |
| CZK -0.3 bn.[1] (2021) | |
| Total assets |  CZK 1.6 bn.[1] (2021) |
| Total equity | CZK -0.9 bn.[1] (2021) |
| Owner | General Atlantic (53.5 %)[2] Oliver Dlouhý (22.4 %)[2] |
Number of employees | 1,700 |
| Website | www |
History
The company was founded in 2012 by Oliver Dlouhý and Jozef Képesi. In 2016 the company rebranded from SkyPicker.com to Kiwi.com[8] Jiří Hlavenka was one of its first investors.[9] In 2017, Kiwi.com acquired a stake in Jaroslav Kokolus.[10] 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[11] and was titled ‘7th fastest growing company’ in EMEA according to Deloitte.[12]
As of June 2019, Kiwi.com’s main shareholder is General Atlantic.[13] Dlouhý remains as major shareholder and continues to run the company.[14]
On 14 January 2021, Southwest Airlines, American airline, 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.[15] 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.[16] 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.[17]
In December 2022, Airasia partnered with Kiwi.com to transform the carrier into the ASEAN app for travel and lifestyle.[18][19]
In 2023, Kiwi.com partnered with Bratislava Airport to assist travelers in finding destinations starting from the Slovakian hub.[20]
In 2024, Ryanair entered into a partnership with booking platform Kiwi.com and Kiwi.com launched the Kiwi.com Guarantee product that provides instant credit refunds if flights are delayed or cancelled. [21][22][23][24]
In 2025 Kiwi.com announced the launch of an MCP Server for AI agent integration in travel search.[25]
Services
In 2018, Kiwi.com launched NOMAD, a special multi-city travel search tool, and Tequila, a dedicated B2B platform.[26][clarification needed]
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).[27]
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.[28] The company booked around 12,000 traveler itineraries daily and employed 2000 workers during 2019.[29]
In 2022, Kiwi.com sold 50 billion CZK worth of tickets.[30][31]
COVID-19
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kiwi.com was criticized for charging customers for legally impossible flights, slow refunds, and poor customer service.[32][33][34][35] It faced backlash for not accounting for travel restrictions and charging extra for basic support, with limited help for unpaid users.[33][29] The Observer named Kiwi.com among the companies with the worst customer service during the first pandemic year.[35] Refund delays were blamed on airline policies and Kiwi’s non-standard booking model.[36]
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Kiwi has been criticized for its refund policies and its customer service practices.[37]
See also
External links
- Kiwi.com (Facebook page)