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Google Launches Flight Search
- Vivtek 15y agoI'm not seeing flight information in my Google search results. Anybody else?
- thematt 15y agoI see it. I tried this: flights from nyc to seattle
- hugh3 15y agoAll I see is schedules of direct flights, making it orders of magnitude less useful than, say, hipmunk. If it could plot non-nonstop routes and quote me prices for specific days, then it'd be really disruptive. But as it is, if I want to go somewhere surely I'll take the extra few seconds to check a proper travel site?
- JeremyBanks 15y agoDid you RTFA? Google's made a recent major acquisition in this field that will give them access to the data you mention, but they haven't had a chance to use it yet; this is a very preliminary product.
- flyt 15y agojust search "SFO to NYC"
- Vivtek 15y agoYeah, I searched "JFK to BUD", which is what interests me. If it's just domestic flights, then wake me when they do something interesting.
- die_sekte 15y agoSeems to work only with US to US flights. "LGA to ORD" works, "FRA to SIN" and "HAM to TXL" don't.
- hugh3 15y agoWorks for international flights with one end in the US. (SFO to LHR, SFO to SYD I've tried...)
- die_sekte 15y agoHm. JFK-FRA works, JFK-SIN doesn't. SFO-(AKL|SIN|BKK|BJS) don't, JFK-WAW doesn't, DEN-MEX doesn't, JFK-YYZ doesn't. So, US-US, US-Western Europe, US-Australia. Strange dataset.
- hugh3 15y agoWell it only has nonstop flights, so JFK-SIN shouldn't work (afaik no aircraft has that range). Likewise SFO-SIN, SFO-BKK. SFO-AKL has direct flights though. I know, I've done it. NZ8. Nice plane. edit: Actually I checked and "sfo to akl" does in fact give me results.
- hugh3 15y agoAnd I'm just coming back to this thread because I learned something today. There are no flights from Singapore to JFK, but there is one to Newark. It's the longest scheduled air route in the world, at 18 hours and 40 minutes. Oh, and it's in a 100-seat all-business-class A340-500. I'm guessing they couldn't do it with a fully-laden economy section. Then again I'd hate to fly 19 hours nonstop in economy.
- Vivtek 15y agoActually, it's now working for all flights into Budapest (including from Europe). Looks like they're shooting for the whole ball of wax.
- bcn 15y agoFlights from an airport: http://www.google.com/search?q=flights+from+SFO http://www.google.com/search?q=flights+from+SFO Flights to an airport http://www.google.com/search?q=flights+to+SFO http://www.google.com/search?q=flights+to+SFO Change SFO to airport code of your choice.
- Vivtek 15y agoThat was freaking weird. They didn't show up until just now. Maybe there's some kind of rollout effect or something.
- zmmmmm 15y agoWow, I got a totally unexpected feeling of joy of getting immediate, concise results from a flight search instead of the usual drag of navigating through 3 - 4 screens and getting long waits, pestered with ads, special offers, etc. If Google can link this to actual bookings then they are on to something huge, especially if they tie it into their other services (think - book flight, have it appear in your calendar with maps in the entry etc.). More or less like TripIt but more integrated and convenient.
- masklinn 15y ago> Wow, I got a totally unexpected feeling of joy of getting immediate, concise results from a flight search instead of the usual drag of navigating through 3 - 4 screens and getting long waits, pestered with ads, special offers, etc. Had you never tried hipmunk before this?
- pushingbits 15y agoThere's also http://www.skyscanner.net http://www.skyscanner.net, which does not seem to get much love around here, even though it was doing flight search well before hipmunk even got started. It's especially good if you want to do an open-ended search, as in you know where you are leaving from and which month you might want to leave, but you're flexible as to where you want to go.
- vaksel 15y agomore warning for anyone in a lucrative space on the web...Google will eventually come for you. It happened to mortgage rates companies, it happened to flights, and eventually given enough it'll happen to any service that acts as a broker/affiliate for other companies.
- Vivtek 15y agoAnyone in a large scale lucrative space, anyway. And one that can be boiled down to a single search. There's plenty of lucre remaining in travel planning and mortgages.
- jlees 15y agoGoogle will eventually come for you. Or buy you. The trick is to be so good at what you do that it's easier for Google to fork out cash than engineering resources.
- ericd 15y agoNot everyone wants to be bought, though, and those that don't shouldn't be at a disadvantage due to Google's position as the gatekeeper of web traffic instantly benefitting their own stuff over the incumbents. This is what antitrust laws are for.
- guelo 15y agoWarning to anyone in any lucrative market, you will have competition.
- vaksel 15y agono this is different...with your competition you are more or less on a level playing field. With Google, they get to always place their stuff before you. which means on the back end much lower traffic for the companies, which in turn drives down the rates you can charge for the leads.
- seabee 15y ago
- fernandotakai 15y agoI still think that hipmunk (http://www.hipmunk.com/ http://www.hipmunk.com/) does a better job.
- bigwally 15y agoHipmunk only shows the flights that have tickets to sell through their partners. Google has a lot more in terms of schedules.
- kn0thing 15y agoAye, mostly true. But Google doesn't tell you anything about whether the fares are available at all, or what they would cost—it's possible a flight's sold out or prohibitively expensive. They also don't have mascot, or hotel search ;) I'll leave it there.
- clistctrl 15y agoI wish Amazon would do this as well. I want 1 click flights, and something that almost all these booking sites lack... awesome customer service. These are 2 things Amazon can do well.
- RK 15y agoIncludes Southwest Airlines flights!
- tonfa 15y agoAnd low cost in Europe (e.g. Easyjet) which aren't usually aggregated in flight search.
- iamdave 15y agoI suddenly have the feeling this is just opened the doors to something MASSIVE in the travel startup niche.
- codabrink 15y agoYes, something like this is nice. I just wish someone else besides Google did it. Google is way too big. I'd much rather have a majority of the internet comprised of many small companies than several internet giants. It's much healthier..
- rakkhi 15y agoAsked Marisa Mayer today: so when can I sort by price and buy direct via google checkout? No reply to date. Anyone else know / speculate?