Kiwi Flight
Enrichetta
In fact Kiwi recently found me a route to Morocco that was $120 cheaper than what I had found on Skyscanner or Momondo. I most recently used Kiwi to book a flight from Johannesburg to Pemba in Mozambique in August (2019) and it worked great.
And this is what makes Kiwi so awesome. While other flight search engines will try to get you booked through your entire route on either the same airline or airlines with codeshares, Kiwi will look at all of the cheapest possibilities, even if it means putting you on two totally separate flights (where you have to check in again during your layover) or sending you to a random airport totally off route.
Even cooler though, if you click on any area of the map on the Kiwi.com homepage, a circle will appear and you can drag it to whatever region you want and adjust its size to determine where you would like your flight to depart from. And then you can either type in a specific destination (or destinations), or you can click the map again and draw a circle around the region you would like to fly to.
So like, when looking up where to go in May, Dan and I drew a circle around southern Norway for our departure (as there are a few different airports near us) and then a circle around all of southern Europe, since we want to go somewhere warm.
Before I switched over to Kiwi I almost always used Skyscanner to search for flights (since it also includes budget airlines), and something that would drive me crazy was having to do separate searches if I wanted to change my departure or destination city.
Well, if you want to be more specific than circular regions, Kiwi lets you search a bunch of different departure cities and/or countries as well as a bunch of different destinations, all at the same time. Again, huge time saver!
And because Kiwi deals with so many different airlines, instead of charging exactly what each airline charges for extra luggage, they have their own set price list. This is an average of the luggage costs for different airlines, so while in some cases Kiwi might charge you less than the airline does, in other cases you might end up paying more (though of course it will still be less than you would have to pay at the airport).
I had to do this on my 5-hour layover in Paris during my flight from Morocco to Oslo. And on my way from Oslo to Morocco I actually spent a night in Lisbon, essentially having a free day in Lisbon thanks to the money I saved by flying two separate routes.
Thank you for the info. I just booked a flight within europe via Kiwi.com. One thing that I find a little odd is that they ask for my passport number and expiration date to check me in. Have you also been requested this info before? Can one check-in directly with the airline rather than via Kiwi?
Tl;dr: The people behind Kiwi are clearly incompetent and not knowledgeable about how travel actually works, and the customer service is horrible if you need it. I might use them again for research in the future, but I will always book the flights I find on there directly with the airlines instead of on Kiwi.
I made a review at trustpilot and when they saw it, they sent me 50 euro voucher for the problems they caused me. After a couple of days they kindly asked me to erase the review. This is the reason they have 4 stars and not 2 which is what they should deserve. Of course i didnt erase neither used their voucher.
I agree!! They have been absolutely TERRIBLE to work with. We had an issue with our tickets ( we bought 3 plane tickets for 3 different people) they were not able to help us AT ALL. We ended up having to buy and additional 3 more plane tickets becasue they would not resolve the initial issue. Truly unbelievable . I will NEVER book through them again and I urge everyone to really think before booking with them.
Silvia,
This was really helpful. I just bought a flight through Kiwi for a Norwegian airlines flight. If I add a checked in baggage or buy seat selection directly with Norwegian will Kiwi know about that? Could it make the guarantee void?
That said, if I had not read all these negative posts about Kiwi, I would never have seen the fact that it requires you to get off and re check in, this is the key point that everyone misses when they use Kiwi and most people obviously do not know this.
Hi Silvia,
This is a great post! I just bought my first round of flights on Kiwi and was mentioning it in a blog post I am writing. Do you mind if I refer my readers to this post for more information on Kiwi?
On our way to Minneapolis from Ukraine we were bumped to a later flight, we lost our connection at JFK. Kiwi Guarantee came through for us. They put us in a hotel, booked us a flight early the next morning and gave us 30 Euros for food and drink while displaced. Thanks Kiwi Guarantee
I had booking for 5 passengers from new york to kabul afghanistan for 14 Jan 2019. I received a job opportunity i sent them an email stating that all my 3 children and my wife are going but as i have a new job now so please cancel my ticket. One indian accent guy told me on the phone that as u have informed us very early threfore the airline will not charge me anything only we will chrge u euros 20 for service chare he told me to go to kiwi.kommanage my booking and fill a return form and they will return my money i found the page filled it and wrote my own name only and at the end of page it said u paid $600 for one person so u will be refuned $427 i said ok give me that. after few hours i received phone call saying that they have cancelled all 5 passngers and out of $2996.67 that i had paid i have received this $427 and that is it and they cannot further assist me. They stold my $2600+
I have my account info and also their booking etc.
1. There are few airlines which are hell bent on making money for every single ounce of extra weight which you realise when you find their people with weighing scale before the boarding gate so then you know that it is part of their plan- low cost ticket BUT high penalty for weight. So i will like Kiwi to highlight such flights in their booking option for us to know and plan the exact weight for them. So Air Asia and Viet Jet are definitely two such airline where unreasonable managers are running the show at airport with a clear agenda to make money by harassing flyers. So they should just put a line in RED for extra weight in these 2 airlines.
I traveled with a Kiwi booking from Singapore to Alicante Spain. Missed my connection in Athens due to delay
from the first leg. I called Kiwi and they sorted out accommodation and new flight the following day.in a timely manner. Very professionally. I can definitely recommend Kiwi. .
Once a full-time nomad, I'm now trying to find a balance between continuing to explore off the beaten path places around the world while also building a home in Norway. Want to know more? Head to my About page!
Kiwi International Air Lines was founded by a group of Eastern Air Lines pilots[7] in a plan to re-employ former Eastern pilots, flight attendants, managers, and other contract and non-contract employees who had lost their jobs when Eastern Air Lines went into bankruptcy in 1989. The former airline pilots originally formed a group and called themselves Kiwis because they were no longer flying, just like the flightless Kiwi birds.[8] In its brief history, the airline flew 8 million passengers without incident.[2]
Originally, the intent of the Kiwi Founders[9] (known as the Kiwi Acquisition Group) was to purchase the Pan Am Shuttle (which flew exclusively between New York LaGuardia, Boston Logan, and Washington National) out of the Pan Am bankruptcy. The group presented a Kelso and Company-backed $100 million offer to Pan Am for the Shuttle. Its offer was rejected in favor of Delta Air Lines offer for Pan Am including its shuttle operation.[10] With advice from the United States Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration, the Kiwi Acquisition Group decided to start a new airline from scratch rather than buy a failing carrier. To do this, the Kiwi Acquisition Group raised approximately $2 million from a group of 40 out-of-work, primarily Newark-based Eastern Air Lines pilots. Each pilot invested $50,000 with a promise of employment as a captain in any new airline the Kiwi Acquisition Group was able to certify - preferably based out of Newark International Airport. When it came time to name the new airline, the Kiwi Acquisition Group decided to keep Kiwi in the name of their new airline.
Kiwi flew its first revenue flights on September 21, 1992, using two refurbished Boeing 727-200s from Lufthansa on routes between Newark and Atlanta, Chicago and Orlando.[11] Kiwi offered gourmet meals and expanded legroom with a 36-inch pitch in their airplanes. At start-up, ownership of KIWI was divided among Kiwi's founders and certain of its employees. According to the DOT (Docket #48056 July 1992) at Start-Up, Founders and brothers Dr. Codie Bell and David Bell owned approximately 47% of the airline's stock.[9] The remainder of Kiwi's stock was spread among a number of other individuals.
Early on the airline secured a passenger sharing agreement from Richard Branson to feed between Kiwi and Virgin Atlantic flights.[13] Branson helped out by promoting Kiwi and calling it his "favorite" U.S. airline. Kiwi did its share and enjoyed a flawless safety record and a near perfect dispatch reliability rate of 99.6%, as it expanded.
In 1993, Chairman Iverson committed Kiwi to placing an order for 11 BAC One-Eleven aircraft with five options. This involved selling a 14 percent stake in KIWI to a Romanian company (Romaero S. A.). Kiwi, which had only five 727-200 long haul jets at the time, reported that the BAC One-Eleven planes would be made by Romaero S.A. under a license from British Aerospace P.L.C. Kiwi committed to spending $20 million for each aircraft, which were primarily a short-haul jet. Under Chairman Iverson, Kiwi ordered 6 jets with 90 seats which were to be equipped with modern Rolls-Royce Tay engines. Kiwi had options to buy another five jets. The British-designed aircraft were to be built in Romania. However, Romaero failed to find any funding to develop and manufacture the aircraft. Kiwi ultimately scrapped the ill-conceived plan, but not before Romaero had invested approximately $1 million in Kiwi and received one seat on the Kiwi Board of Directors.[14][15]
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