Cheap Flights Site Skyscanner to Recruit 250 New Staff

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Travel website http://www.cheap-flight-4u.com , based in Edinburgh, to fund doubling of workforce through profits, with 2012 turnover at £33.5m

Skyscanner is re-investing its profit in doubling its workforce. Photograph: Luke Macgregor/REUTERS
Skyscanner, the online flight search service, is to double its workforce to 500 in the next year.

The Edinburgh-based site is to fund the expansion through cash flow and operating profits, according to the Financial Times.

Skyscanner, which takes a cut on each booking or a commission on each click through to an airline website http://www.cheap-flight-4u.com which converts into a sale, turned over £33.5m in 2012.

Founder Gareth Williams told the Guardian last year that the site would expand tenfold in the next three or four years.

Williams told the FT that the site was already bigger than rival Kayak outside the US "and not far behind them globally".

More than half of the new jobs are expected to be in Scotland.

 Watch our video interview with rival travel startup GoEuro, which compares flights with coach and train connections across Europe.