Search multi-city business-class flights on Skyscanner India

Purpose

Search Skyscanner India for exact-date multi-city business-class flight options and extract visible itinerary cards while distinguishing an anti-bot CAPTCHA page from a genuine empty result.

When to Use

Use when the caller needs a business-class itinerary with two or more ordered flight legs, each having its own origin, destination, and departure date. Use airport or city codes when available and preserve the leg order exactly as requested.

Workflow

1. Construct a result URL directly, without visiting the homepage or using the search form. The canonical multi-city format for two legs is: https://www.skyscanner.co.in/transport/flights-multi-city/{origin-1}/{destination-1}/{date-1}/{origin-2}/{destination-2}/{date-2}/?adultsv2={adults}&cabinclass=business Dates use two-digit year, month, and day (YYMMDD). Append /{origin}/{destination}/{date} before the query string for additional legs.
2. Skyscanner India also accepts this alternate multi-leg format, which omits the flights-multi-city path segment: https://www.skyscanner.co.in/transport/flights/{origin-1}/{destination-1}/{date-1}/{origin-2}/{destination-2}/{date-2}/?adultsv2={adults}&cabinclass=business Extend it with additional ordered origin/destination/date triplets as needed. Use this alternate form when testing compatibility or when the canonical form is unavailable; do not add the return-search flag rtn=1.
3. Use the requested airport or city codes and preserve leg order. Add optional query parameters only when requested, such as sortby=price for ascending price sorting or preferdirects={true-or-false} for a direct-flight preference.
4. If operating on Skyscanner's interactive search form rather than navigating directly to a result URL, select the trip type through the button whose aria-label begins with Select trip type, then choose the list item whose text begins with Multi-city. This is a fallback UI flow only; direct result URLs are preferred.
5. Navigate directly to the constructed URL, wait for asynchronous results to settle, then run this evaluator on the loaded page:

   (() => {
     const body = document.body?.innerText || "";
     const blocked =
       /\/sttc\/px\/captcha/i.test(location.pathname) ||
       /captcha|verify you are human|checking your browser/i.test(body);
     const candidates = [...document.querySelectorAll("a[href]")].filter(
       (a) =>
         /Flight option/i.test(a.innerText || "") &&
         !/Sponsored/i.test(a.innerText || ""),
     );
     const fallback = [
       ...document.querySelectorAll(
         '[data-testid^="itinerary"], [data-testid*="flight-card"], article',
       ),
     ].filter((node) => !/Sponsored/i.test(node.innerText || ""));
     const nodes = candidates.length ? candidates : fallback;
     const seen = new Set();
     const flights = nodes
       .map((node) => {
         const text = (node.innerText || "").replace(/\s+/g, " ").trim();
         const link = node.matches("a[href]") ? node : node.querySelector("a[href]");
         return {
           text,
           url: link ? new URL(link.getAttribute("href"), location.href).href : null,
         };
       })
       .filter(
         (row) =>
           row.text &&
           (/Flight option/i.test(row.text) ||
             /\b\d{1,2}:\d{2}\b|\b\d+\s*(?:h|hr|hours?)\b|₹|\bINR\b|flight/i.test(
               row.text,
             )),
       )
       .filter((row) => {
         const key = row.text + "\n" + (row.url || "");
         if (seen.has(key)) return false;
         seen.add(key);
         return true;
       });
     return { blocked, url: location.href, flights };
   })();

6. If blocked is true, report the CAPTCHA interstitial rather than treating the page as having no flights. Otherwise return the visible itinerary text and links, preserving displayed prices, carriers, times, stops, and durations.

Site-Specific Gotchas

• Skyscanner India supports both /transport/flights-multi-city/ and the alternate /transport/flights/ multi-leg route, with each leg represented by an ordered origin, destination, and YYMMDD date triplet.
• Multi-city URLs use adultsv2 and cabinclass=business; the multi-city routes do not require rtn=1.
• The interactive trip-type control is identified by an aria-label beginning with Select trip type; its menu item is a list item beginning with Multi-city. These selectors are a fallback for form-based flows, not a replacement for direct URL construction.
• The route dates are local departure calendar dates for each individual leg, not a trip duration. Do not infer or substitute a return date for later legs.
• A result URL can redirect to /sttc/px/captcha-v2/index.html; this anti-bot state is not evidence that no flights exist. CAPTCHA redirects may occur on either the canonical multi-city URL or the alternate /transport/flights/ form.
• Repeated navigation may continue to return CAPTCHA. Do not fabricate results or reuse transient CAPTCHA query values such as encoded url, UUID, or vid parameters.
• Prefer visible Flight option links. Use the itinerary/card selectors in the evaluator only as a fallback, and revalidate them if Skyscanner changes its markup.
• Optional sortby=price and preferdirects parameters may be appended when explicitly requested; omit them by default.

Expected Output

Return {blocked, url, flights}. Each flight entry contains normalized visible itinerary-card text and its associated absolute url. When CAPTCHA is shown, return blocked: true and an empty or partial flights array rather than fabricated results.