4 ms·

What is the history of ITA Matrix? I thought it was bought by Kayak.com. Was that just a license to some data or something?

discordance 5y ago
Google bought ITA Software: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITA_Software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITA_Software
AlotOfReading 5y ago
Kayak licensed/used QPX from ITA back when they were an independent company. Google acquired ITA and as part of the regulatory approval had to operate the APIs for at least the next few years. Kayak continued with QPX, but slowly shifted over to using Amadeus whenever they could. I imagine they've completely switched by now, given how bad the Google <-> kayak relationship is.
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  >how bad the Google <-> kayak relationship is How come? Is it related to SEO?
  - AlotOfReading 5y ago
    ITA and kayak were organizationally close in a lot of ways. Kayak brought lots of useful data relationships to the table and ITA brought their technological wizardry. Google was a direct (and hostile) competitor to kayak, who led the anti-trust charge to stop the acquisition. The post-acquisition hostility is just the standard SV playbook stuff like prioritizing Google products in search results and offering amazing incentives to build market share. I have no particular insight here beyond a general interest in the industry though.
- gertrunde 5y ago
  That's slightly frustrating to hear that Kayak are getting messed about by Google, as Kayak is about the only flight search tool that I've used that suits the airport situation in the UK. (e.g. 4-5 international airports reachable within 1 hour drive, another 2-3 reachable within 2 hours drive, flexibility to search across all of them). The other flight search tools that I've used might, at most, allow one alternative airport.
  - F30 5y ago
    It seems that (at least the new) ITA Matrix Search can do that as well: Once you select an airport (or city) as origin or destination, it gets added to a list of possible locations. Being used to Kayak‘s comma syntax, I did not find this intuitive at first. But in fact, it is pretty convenient and powerful.
  - m-s 5y ago
    Google Flights allows multiple alternative airports as well

discordance 5y ago

Google bought ITA Software: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITA_Software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITA_Software

AlotOfReading 5y ago

Kayak licensed/used QPX from ITA back when they were an independent company. Google acquired ITA and as part of the regulatory approval had to operate the APIs for at least the next few years. Kayak continued with QPX, but slowly shifted over to using Amadeus whenever they could. I imagine they've completely switched by now, given how bad the Google <-> kayak relationship is.

mardifoufs 5y ago
>how bad the Google <-> kayak relationship is How come? Is it related to SEO?
- AlotOfReading 5y ago
  ITA and kayak were organizationally close in a lot of ways. Kayak brought lots of useful data relationships to the table and ITA brought their technological wizardry. Google was a direct (and hostile) competitor to kayak, who led the anti-trust charge to stop the acquisition. The post-acquisition hostility is just the standard SV playbook stuff like prioritizing Google products in search results and offering amazing incentives to build market share. I have no particular insight here beyond a general interest in the industry though.
gertrunde 5y ago
That's slightly frustrating to hear that Kayak are getting messed about by Google, as Kayak is about the only flight search tool that I've used that suits the airport situation in the UK. (e.g. 4-5 international airports reachable within 1 hour drive, another 2-3 reachable within 2 hours drive, flexibility to search across all of them). The other flight search tools that I've used might, at most, allow one alternative airport.
- F30 5y ago
  It seems that (at least the new) ITA Matrix Search can do that as well: Once you select an airport (or city) as origin or destination, it gets added to a list of possible locations. Being used to Kayak‘s comma syntax, I did not find this intuitive at first. But in fact, it is pretty convenient and powerful.
- m-s 5y ago
  Google Flights allows multiple alternative airports as well