As the travel and tourism industry is growing rapidly, technological advancements are also growing to make customer’s travel more convenient and seamless.
For making an easy and hassle-free booking of flights, flight booking apps are in demand among customers where they can easily book flight tickets in just one click.
The travel and tourism app generated $629 billion in revenue last year which is a 13% increase on the previous year.
Sounds like absolute development!! Right?!
Yes, it is a huge development in the field of app development and if you are thinking of developing a flight booking app then it’s very useful and enhances your business growth.
In this blog, we will cover all the important aspects of developing a flight booking app and how much it costs, and we will talk about the features and benefits of this app.
Exploring the Flight App Development Market
As the travel industry is booming it also increases the business’s revenue and enhances business growth.
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The Mobile Travel Booking market witness a growth with an anticipated value of $612.5 billion (about $1,900 per person in the US) by 2031.
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According to Travel Perk, the percentage of travelers who used a website through mobile devices for booking is almost one-third (32%) and 23% used a mobile app directly in 2023.
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It’s predicted that 76% of total revenue in tourism and travel will be generated through online sales by 2028.
Benefits of developing a flight booking app
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Flight booking apps provide feasible and hassle-free services to customers as they can book their travel at their fingertips.
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These apps help customers save their time and money. Customers can browse diverse airlines and book their tickets as per their convenience and preferences.
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It can also personalize the user experience by saving the user preferences. It means it will directly provide the results and options to users according to their preferences such as meals, airline, Cost, etc.
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Customers can get real-time updates regarding flight timings, delays, and any additional information through the flight booking app.
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Flight booking apps provide a seamless and user-friendly interface from the process of selection of seats to the overall booking of the flight.
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Flight booking apps provide diverse options of airlines where customers can choose the airline, compare prices, flight timing, and many more services as per their preferences.
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Flight booking also offers customer support services such as phone assistance, chatbots, and live chat to resolve the queries of the customers and enhance engagement.
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Many flight booking apps provide loyalty programs and rewards where users can redeem their rewards and take advantage of special discounts and offers.
Top 5 flight Booking apps
There are various flight-booking apps in the market, and we will discuss the 5 most used and preferred flight-booking apps in this section.
1. MakeMyTrip
MakeMyTrip is one the best and most used flight booking apps by customers which provides all the necessary services to the customers including booking of flights, hotels, cabs, buses, homestays, easy bookings, and cancellations.
2. Skyscanner
Skyscanner is a flight booking, car hire, and hotel search engine where it provides options to customers after examining the user’s needs and preferences and filters out the options of hotels, flights, and cars.
After choosing the best option users can directly book their stay or tickets to the hotel or airline website.
3. Hopper
Hopper is recognized as the best travel website that helps users in finding airlines, hotels, home and car rentals around the globe and provides affordable and feasible services.
Hopper makes the most accurate price prediction, and they archive trillions of data points.
4. Goibibo
Goibibo is the leading flight booking app providing various services such as a selection of hotels, vacation plans, flights, car rentals, and many more.
It provides the quickest and easiest services to the customers, and it also provides various offers and discounts on travel or flight bookings.
5. WeGo
WeGo is the fastest and easiest platform for travelers to get the finest and seamless management of flight booking, hotels, expenses, vacation plans, and cars for travelers.
New features like insights within the app play a crucial role in getting an idea of overall spending of the company and how a company can save spending in the future.
Features of Flight Booking App
Before creating a flight booking app, you must know several features to provide convenience to the customers.
To make a successful app you should work on the demands and the preferences of the targeted audience.
Here are several basic features that you should be aware of before getting into the process of developing a flight booking app.
1. Simplified search and booking
The search function is the heart of a flight booking app. You need to make it powerful yet simple so that people can easily search their flights, departures, and delays and can get results in one tap.
It would help if you connected with diverse airlines through which you can provide various options to your customers such as prices, available seats, and no of passengers on a flight while booking.
2. Booking and reservation
You should develop user-friendly and easy booking and reservation options such as providing different payment methods such as Debit cards, UPI, and others that help increase customer retention on the app for bookings.
3. Real-time updates
You must work on the feature of real-time updates that help the customers to know the real updates regarding flights such as delays, timings, and any modifications. Customers can access all updates through live tracking.
4. Push-up notifications
This feature is crucial in any app because it enhances customer engagement.
By providing push-up notifications on customers’ devices according to the customer’s previous preferences such as prices drop on booking, discounts and offers, etc. customer will engage with the app more.
5. Interactive customer support
Customer support is the most basic and important feature in any app development, you should make your app as interactive as possible by using engaging chatbots, live messaging, and phone assistance to resolve the queries of customers engagingly and positively.
Process of developing a flight booking app
As the travel and tourism industry grows, developing a flight booking app will be extremely beneficial for your business.
Like other business apps, flight booking apps contain several stages for successful app development.
1. Market Research
Before development of an app, you must understand the market of the travel and tourism industry, get into proper research of diverse airline policies, conduct interviews with experts, and do a proper literature review.
Go to the several flight booking apps and analyze your competitor’s approach and plans that already exist, study them deeply and try to find out the research gaps and work towards them to make your app different from others in the market.
2. Target audience
Examining your target audience helps you in the development of an app because by knowing your audience you can work on the app features as per your target audience preferences and needs.
3. Secure and multiple payment options
Provide multiple payment options for booking in your app like Credit cards, and UPI to the customers for payment and make easy and hassle-free transactions for the customers.
4. UI/UX design
Make a more interactive and user-friendly interface that is easy to use for the customers. Moreover, it should provide a seamless experience for customers that guides them from searching for flights to booking their tickets with ease.
5. Backend Development
After designing the app, the backend development of an app includes building the server, database management, and APIs. This includes connecting different parts of your app and integration with external services.
It involves the integration of flight data providers, payment gateway notification services, and many more updates.
Technologies used in backend development are Node.js, Python, and Java.
6. Frontend development
It is the development of the app interface with which the users interact. This includes the creation of a clean and accessible search bar, flight selection process, and available seat information to make a smooth and streamlined booking process for customers.
It offers simple and secure options for users to create accounts and easy login, profile management, and booking history.
Tecnologies used in frontend development for native development includes Kotlin (Android), Swift (IOs), and for Coss platform development React Native and Flutter.
7. Testing
Testing is an important step before launching the product to ensure the smooth functioning of an app. It includes
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Functionality testing– it verifies the functioning of features within the app correctly.
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Performance testing- It checks how the app performs under various conditions.
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Usability Testing- It ensures that the app is user-friendly and easy to use by the customers.
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Security testing- It allows checking on the personal data of customers should be secure and end-to-end encrypted.
Collect feedback and review the flaws if any and make improvements as per the issues.
8. Launching
Once the app passes all tests, it’s good to go. Submit it to the stores (iOS, Android) as per their guidelines for approval.
After launching the app, you must work on your marketing strategy for the promotion of your app including social media campaigns, influencer marketing, and press releases.
Factors affecting the cost of flight booking app development
Various factors affect the cost of flight booking app development.
1. Designing of an app (Simple vs. Complex)
Designing an app plays a vital role in affecting the cost of developing a flight booking app.
A simple design app focuses on basic UI/UX principles including- a friendly layout, a simple booking process, clear search bar where users can navigate the app easily without any disruption.
Complex design involves a more sophisticated and visually engaging UI/UX that includes custom graphics, AR/VR elements, dynamic filters, and many interactive elements.
Before developing an app, you will come up with one crucial decision whether to develop for a single platform (iOS or Android) or to go cross-platform (developing for both iOS and Android).
3. Development Team
When it comes to building a flight booking app, you will need to decide how you would assemble your development team.
Should you hire an in-house team of full-time developers and designers, or should you outsource the project to a development company?
Each approach has its advantages and costs in the development of flight booking apps.
4. App Maintenance and updates
Once your flight booking app is launched, maintaining and updating your app is crucial for its continued success.
Maintenance includes fixing bugs for the smooth functioning of apps and essential updates to improve the booking process based on user feedback.
5. Third-party Integration
Integration with third-party APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for flight data, payment gateways, or backend systems in your app affects development costs.
Cost Estimation in developing a flight booking app
Flight booking app development process cost estimate is challenging as it depends on various components of the development of a flight booking app.
Here is an estimated cost breakdown in the development of a flight booking app based on several components.
Development Component | Estimated Range |
UI/UX design | $15000 – $30000 |
Frontend Development | $25000 – $50000 |
Backend Development | $30000 – $70000 |
API Integration | $20000- $40000 |
In-house developers | $50000 – $100000 |
Outsource developers | $ 30000 -$ 80000 |
Payment Gateway Integration | $10000 – $20000 |
Testing | $10,000- $30000 |
Deployment and launching | $5000 – $10000 |
Conclusion
As the travel and tourism industry is growing rapidly, the online booking for flights market is also increasing.
Businesses gain success by developing flight booking apps for users to make hassle-free and convenient bookings for them.
If you want to develop a flight booking app then knowing the process, features, and cost in the development of the app is necessary as we have covered in this blog which is very helpful for your app development.
How can we help in developing your app?
If you want a cost-effective flight booking app development, you need to hire a skilled developer who can work with emerging technologies for the better treatment of an app.
BigOhTech builds a secure and scalable software product with emerging technologies and to create a successful flight booking app you can hire a developer from BigOhTech as we top notch IT talent to achieve your business goals and for successful mobile app development.
