Bits Blog: Google Introduces Long-Awaited Flight Search

Updated 2:15 p.m. to add details after Google made its  announcement about the new service.

Google introduced flight search on Tuesday, competing head-to-head with travel search engines like Kayak, Orbitz and Microsoft’s Bing.

The service has been expected since Google announced last year its intention to buy ITA Software, which makes the flight search software used by many airlines and travel search engines like Orbitz and Bing. The deal underwent intense antitrust scrutiny, but the Department of Justice approved the acquisition, with caveats, in April.

Google said its flight results are not influenced by any paid relationship; the search engine directs travelers to the airline’s own Web site to book the flight.

Google has said that it wanted to buy ITA to provide a new, open-ended kind of travel search, so that, for instance, people could ask Google where they could go to find warm weather and beaches in December for under $300 round-trip.

The service introduced Tuesday was not Google’s full offering but an initial step in that direction, according to the company. For now, it only shows select cities in the United States and results for economy-class, round-trip flights.

When travelers search for flights on Google or visit google.com/flights, they will see flight options from a variety of airlines, which they can sort by departure or arrival time, flight duration, route, airline or price. Taking a step toward its ultimate goal, the service includes a way to filter flights by time and price to figure out where to go.

Like Bing, Google’s flight search compares prices over time, and like Hipmunk, a travel search start-up, people can sort flights visually on a graph, based on duration and price.

Google says its results are fast; on an initial try-out of the service,  they do seem to appear instantaneously, compared with other sites where users wait while the site compiles results.

Google’s flight search joins other travel offerings, like hotel search, which it introduced in July.

The Department of Justice has required Google to continue to license ITA’s software to other sites that now compete with Google, many of which vocally opposed the acquisition.

On Tuesday, Robert Birge, Kayak’s chief marketing officer and a spokesman for FairSearch.org, a group of businesses that believe that Google has a monopoly in search and fought the acquisition, said in a statement that Kayak’s flight search is superior.

“We recognize Google is a formidable competitor, but they haven’t been successful in every vertical they’ve entered,” Mr. Birge said. “We use multiple data sources and proprietary technology, all of which helps us in our efforts to provide people with comprehensive, fast and accurate answers to their flight search needs.”

Article source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/google-introduces-long-awaited-flight-search/?partner=rss&emc=rss