Google shuts down a project. I don't think this really stops the press anymore. I'm not familiar with this one, but building your infrastructure on small Google APIs is starting to seem foolish.
Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data
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Re: Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data
#62I was part of a team developing a travel product which needed huge amounts of data from flights to car rental... My god the travel industry is a mess in terms of accessible data. It was the biggest pain point. API's would randomly change structure, endpoints would stop working with unknown errors, data would be significantly different across companies for the same data etc... It was a shambles. Never again will I dev…
I think this is probably the general state of data exchange systems in most industries/sectors where an IT company/startup hasn't come along to successfully disrupt it or none of the major players have become tech-oriented enough to see - much less sort out - these kinds problems well.
That's been my experience anyways.
Re: Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data
#63I was part of a team developing a travel product which needed huge amounts of data from flights to car rental... My god the travel industry is a mess in terms of accessible data. It was the biggest pain point. API's would randomly change structure, endpoints would stop working with unknown errors, data would be significantly different across companies for the same data etc... It was a shambles. Never again will I dev…
Didn't like OTA[1], eh? I don't know that other industries are much better though. Ask a healthcare IT person about HL7. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenTravel_Alliance
> Ask a healthcare IT person about HL7.
Been there, done that. Never again!
Re: Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
The power user interface, which lets you specify all sorts of wacky constraints any other OTA can't handle. https://travelcodex.com/advanced-routing-language-in-ita/
Thanks. Looks like google flights can do most of it but with gui elements. The one thing it doesn't do which I really like is to be able to specify a layover of 1-2 days, ita does it which is great. (OK I guess I can do it with multi city, but it isn't like the old days where layovers were sometimes a feature not something to be avoided)
To quote myself from a year ago (although Delta and Alaska aren't partners anymore) [3]:
One of the features I like to use a lot is the ability to specify fare classes. As an example, say I want to fly to Tokyo, and I am an Alaska Airlines mileage plan member. Alaska Airlines does not fly to Tokyo, but it has deals with airlines that do. However, sometimes the fare classes are quite complicated. For instance, "Economy" is broken down into many buckets, and not all are created equal. For instance, Delta has at least 13 buckets for Economy, and each 'fare class' awards different amounts of mileage to Alaska flyers [1]:
E: 25% Mileage
L, U, T, X, V: 50% Mileage
H, Q, K: 75%
B, M, S: 100% Mileage
Y: 125% Mileage
If you search on Google Flights, these will all be called "Economy". If you search on most of the other OTA's (Online Travel Agents), you can sometimes find the fare class during checkout or even as part of your search results, but you can't filter on it (Hipmunk is one that does support some of ITA's syntax for these filters, but not all). The buckets aren't always strictly more/less expensive, but they're usually not exposed very easily, if at all[2]. So, you're often left crawling from listing to listing, expanding to see if they are going to get you any miles. (I'll save the debate of whether miles are worth all the effort for another day.)
On ITA, it's not unreasonable to construct a query that says "During the month of November, show me round trips that are between 12 and 19 days that are going from Denver to either Narita or Haneda Airports, which will earn me more than 50% miles on either Delta or American or JAL, but also only ones that connect in Portland or Los Angeles, with no prop planes or overnight stops, and no [1] https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mileage-plan/how-to-earn-m...
[2] Delta, to its credit, does allow you to search by minimum fair class on its advanced search)
Re: Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a client hasn't learned by now, they're not gonna learn from this either. For niche apis Google has no trust left to burn, because all trust in its products is either already burnt or inflammable.
And yet, there are still a lot of companies using and relying on Google APIs and cloud services. I don't understand why there is still so much trust in them after they've shown multiple times they will terminate services with little warning. And no, I don't consider 1 year a long enough warning for something that has no clear drop-in substitute. If you're using a Google service, you must be prepared for when they'll…
If you're using any service that's absolutely required for business, then you must be prepared for when they'll pull it from your feet or increase the pricing to eat all your profit margin.
Of course you need to prepare for that, that's just basic part of running any business, software or not. The answer to "why use that service to begin with if an alternative exists?" is likely based on cost or quality, but if it's required for your business and you can't switch to an alternative within 1 year, then you obviously knew that you should have had started looking for an alternative long ago and start preparations for switching to an alternative, from day one or, more precisely, from the day you decided that this business is worth running at all. The only excuse not to do that if it's a commodity product with clear drop-in substitutes, otherwise you're just sloppy with running a business and/or knowingly taking on risks that your business may suddenly stop - and not because of the API going away (the risk was predictable) but because of your own unpreparedness.
It's the same with any other services. What do you do if your landlord dumps you or the building burns down or goes down in a flood or hurricane or whatever? If your need for facilities is a commodity in a liquid market, then you'll be able to replace them, but if not, if you need something that's not readily available to avoid huge losses then it's your (assuming executive positions) duty to prepare alternatives in time and/or get appropriate insurance. What do you do if your service for accepting credit cards stops working or dumps you for whatever reason? If you're a reasonable business, you have a second, independent contract with all the deals already arranged that you can switch to in a day if not immediately. The same goes for any non-commodity that you need. If a supplier dumping you means just that you have to drive to a store and buy the same thing from someone else more expensively, then you can skip worrying, but if not, then it's on you to safeguard your business with alternatives instead of blaming suppliers for being unreliable. In some cases, the suppliers will actively exploit knowing that you don't have prepared alternatives - if they've got you by the balls, they can squeeze them and get the price and conditions that they want; and if/when you get serious alternatives, then you can get a whole new range of discounts, that's business as usual.
Re: Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not aware, at least not of one which is offered for free (one a base level). I have been using this one for Python practice. Sad to see it go.
My company xmltravelgate.com offers a flight API (search & book) with many direct airlines (low cost and NDC) and 3 GDS already integrated, although you do need a contract with them... We're releasing a new aggregated flight API and flight cache API (only price & availability, no booking, no contracts) based on GraphQL scheduled for January. Feel free to contact me for more details.
This is me contacting you. Please share details, very interested.
Re: Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data
#67Six months ago, I started developing a Flight Alerting service for QPX Express API. I was always skeptical as to how long would they keep this API running, since it was a byproduct of a previous acquisition. But I said to myself, wishfully thinking: Why would they shut down this and lose their clients trust in developing with their APIs? Sadly, I was again proven wrong.
If a client hasn't learned by now, they're not gonna learn from this either. For niche apis Google has no trust left to burn, because all trust in its products is either already burnt or inflammable.
Nit: "inflammable" means "can be set of fire". So does "flammable". Yes, I know.
You want "not flammable", or if you want to be cute you could try "unflammable".
Re: Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
They've been up for 2 years, so how is it " Now that five years are up, Google would want to deny competitors access to that data"? If that was their reasoning they would've done it 2 years ago. It's 2 years of extra advantage they didn't need to give their competitors, right?
Now that the five years are up and Google Flights just started facilitating actual airfare purchases (a recent development)
Okay, that second part finally explains it, thanks for that. I had a hunch the five years having been up 2 years ago didn't tell nearly the whole story (though apparently people think I'm crazy for thinking that).
Re: Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data
#69Google shuts down a project. I don't think this really stops the press anymore. I'm not familiar with this one, but building your infrastructure on small Google APIs is starting to seem foolish.
One day Google will shutdown Gmail.
Finally then everyone will learn to ignore their non-Advertising services. It's for the best!
Re: Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data
#70We used this service for an internal company flight-booking application. Fortunately, we booked all the flights for this year but I guess we'll need to find another solution if we do this again for another year.