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Google Flight Search

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Re: Google Flight Search

#191

Post by T-hawk »

pmorici wrote: post #183

I don't understand why anyone would use a federated flight search when looking for a domestic flight in the US. None of the major airlines come close to Southwest in terms of price or hassle free travel and none of the flight search engines include price information for Southwest.

Perhaps for the still-common case of flying to an airport where Southwest doesn't go? Southwest gets to be cheap in significant part by only flying routes with enough demand to fill a 737.

And on rare occasions another airline does beat Southwest's price. Sometimes I see flights in and out of JFK turn up cheaper on Delta.

Re: Google Flight Search

#193

Post by icandoitbetter »

sbochins wrote: post #166
breck wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree. Google wants us to use its services because at its core is a bunch of engineers that simply want to make the world better.

I saw a documentary about advertising agencies. They interviewed someone working at the marketing division of nike. She said her job was to get people to play sports. That of course is not true. Her job is to get people to buy shoes. I think your comment is misguided as well. Google really just wants people to click on ads.

Yes, Google wants to make more money. No question about it. But why are you so eager to reject any other possible motivation just because profit-making is involved? There is satisfaction in making the world a better place; why wouldn't Sergey & Larry want to get that satisfaction?

Re: Google Flight Search

#194

Post by Fenn »

kiwidrew wrote: post #46

It’s rather powerful: as long as the origin airport is one of those shown on the map, and the destination airport is reachable via a domestic flight on one of the major airlines (AA, AS, B6, CO, DL, F9, UA, US), the search results come back instantaneously. Multiple origins and destinations (up to five of each) are supported as well: http://www.google.com/flights/#search;f=LAX,SFO,SEA,LAS,DEN;... And the results stil…

I would think the limiting factor is availability. You can pre-compute valid fares between cities super-fast with sufficient computing power, but you're still (somewhat) limited by the rate at which you can update availability, which _still_ has to be polled from airline systems (to some degree) and can't give you answers in One of the bits ITA/QPX got really right was smart availability caching (http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/001880.html) -

I would think they can do the fare search/assembly in realtime with their infrastructure, but they're relying on cached availability, hence the limit to "popular US cities" at the moment, to keep caches fresh enough within the practical throughput limits.

Re: Google Flight Search

#195

Post by esutton »

what will be a game changing tool, and something befitting the resources of google, would be to pair flights together that are cheaper than what is offered by the airline. for instance: flying from NY to LA. Airlines sell this route non stop, or through one of their hubs. But imagine if a flight search can figure out that a oneway flight from ny to new orleans on Delta and than a flight from new orleans on AA, had a low layover and was significantly cheaper than the published routes.

The problem is that as this expands to more cities and takes more stops, you end up hitting an NP problem.

Re: Google Flight Search

#196

Post by samstave »

You know what would my make flights better (I travel a lot for work - but work out of my house and book a lot of my own travel)

I want to be able to setup standard trips/itineraries and be able to single clik re-book them with simply a leave and return date.

Further, I want the system to auto arrange for a cab/shuttle/uber to pick me up and take me to my destination.

For example, I fly to LAX several times a month - Nome Alaska once a month, Soon it will be Dallas once a month - and various places in the bay area.

If I can setup my "Visit LAX trip" with all my details and know that a car was waiting for me when I got to LAX to take me to my office/hotel and I didnt have to do anything other than click "Re-book LAX" that would save me so much time and hassle.

I would setup my preferred airlines, times and seats (Virgin America etc...)

Re: Google Flight Search

#197

Post by rudiger »

kelnos wrote: post #177
rudiger wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of the Golden Rule: Should one treat others as one would like others to treat oneself? (the positive form) Should one not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated? (the negative form) I consider the maxim “Don't be evil” to be more actionable, useful, and meaningful than “Be good.”

I think Don't be Evil is just easier , since you could make the argument that you could theoretically actually enumerate a list of things that most people would consider truly "evil". Do Good... well, good luck making that list. So, uh... in hindsight I guess I'm just agreeing with you :-P

Sadly, the set of "evil" things is also uncountably infinite.

Re: Google Flight Search

#198

Post by crenshaw »

sharmajai wrote: post #186
bradleyland wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest. Google wants us to use their services because the better they understand us, the better they can advertise to us. That's the profit model at Google. I don't begrudge them for it either. You've got to turn a profit if you want to keep the lights on. I don't mean any offense, but the "Don't be evil" mantra is growing a bit tired. Evil is a strong word, and "not being evil" is a pretty low bar, IMO.

I am reminded time and time again how much "Don't be evil" mantra still holds for Google whenever other evil corporations do things like suing companies for looks of a product, primarily to hamper competition, and when they take cut out of sale made on their platform without adding any value whatsoever to the payment platform. When was the last time Google abused its set of patents to screw competition? There are so…

Patents are just one way to be evil. Another way to be evil might be to let Canadian companies advertise illegally to sell prescription drugs in the US.

From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/24/google-settles-phar...

"Investigators snared Google's ad system by creating seven undercover websites offering prescription drugs to be sold without a prescription or the completion of an online medical questionnaire, Martin-Weis said. An undercover investigator informed Google employees creating the advertising for the products that they were manufactured overseas and did not require customers to have a valid prescription, she said. "In each instance, despite this knowledge, Google employees created a full advertising campaign for each of the undercover websites," Martin-Weis said."

Re: Google Flight Search

#199

Post by crenshaw »

goldfish wrote: post #91
toot wrote: post #44

It's quite scary that a company like Google can come along and shit in a startup's cereal practically overnight. I know we were all rooting for The 'Munk, but it seems that Google's use of Price x Duration matrix effectively steals the thunder from Hipmunk's agony filter. I mean, it's not as if Google needs the affiliate revenue, and I bet the Hipmunk guys would have preferred it had Google decided to "organise the w…

No tears over here! We've known this was coming for almost a year—Google announced their ITA acquisition before we even launched. We've also been preparing some sweet responses :)

Nice. You have a lot of people on your side.

Re: Google Flight Search

#200

Post by redthrowaway »

raldi wrote: post #121
redthrowaway wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So who are you rooting for? In the hypothetical world where there is a winner and a loser (which travel search pretty much is, given its maturity), are you rooting for the home team or for the guys you worked with for so long?

Well, I work at Google and some of my best friends are at Hipmunk, so the ideal outcome would be for Google to buy Hipmunk. Or vice versa.

>Or vice versa

I like you.

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