[jamn]

I do see reasons.

They have fixed costs (independent from the number of tickets bought) in the form of payments for search results to ITA plus whatever company overhead (maintenance, salaries, etc).

Whether Hipmunk can afford improvements in user experience while earning thinner margins than the competition is not entirely obvious to me.

I do hope they make it though. Hipmunk rocks!

[staunch]

Hipmunk will grow up living on whatever profit margins they end up being able to generate. Kayak at this point could not learn to live on significantly less.