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Google Flight Search

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Re: Google Flight Search

#231

Post by jser »

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…

Published airline fares change only a couple of times a day (10:30am, noon and 8pm), and only once a day on the weekends. Airlines (like American) are trying to push travel sites to use more dynamic pricing. The data is cached and outdated (including availability).

It doesn't take a tremendous amount of computing power -- remember that most airlines are still running ancient mainframe reservation systems.

The multiple destinations functionality was from ITA -- it's been around for years. Check out flyertalk.com for discussions -- you can input multiple layovers to have it compute cheap fares that maximize miles/segments. They keep a basic backend open at: matrix1.itasoftware.com

Re: Google Flight Search

#232

Post by whatusername »

rhygar wrote: post #214
waqf wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outbound/return is standard terminology all over the travel industry. Including in UK and US, and for trains and for planes: I'm surprised you're not familiar with it. "Depart" means something different: it refers to the beginning of each leg of the journey. Its opposite is "arrive". So you might have an outbound leg which departs from LAX and arrives in SFO, and then a return leg which departs from SFO and arrives i…

Hipmunk.com says depart/return and Iflyswa.com says departing/returning. Your claim is 0/2 so far.

I went to go and prove you wrong (I personally use outbound/return).

But webjet (Departing/Returning) and skyscanner (Depart/Return) seem to back you up.

Re: Google Flight Search

#233

Post by jser »

esutton wrote: post #213
kiwidrew wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unlikely that the Delta fare from NYC to MSY and the American fare from MSY to LAX permit end-on-end combination with each other, so it would have to be issued as two separate tickets. What happens if your Delta flight to New Orleans is delayed and you miss your connecting flight to Los Angeles on American? Neither carrier is going to offer you any compensation, and your travel insurance probably has a clause wh…

perfectly fair, i admit i've done some flight "hacking" myself. The reason i bring it up is because it is well know that airlines prices their flights between city pairs, not based on the legs. For instance a flight, between jfk and lax through chicago could cost more than the sum of those two same exact flights. This would be an opportunity to build your own ticket. I admit there are significant downsides with delay…

The market for building complicated routings is very small -- typically only mile/segment runners. ITA's backend is already used by that community for this, but not sure why the public would be interested. Each segment adds additional landing fees and taxes, making it more expensive, unless you're exploiting a rare hub/partner mistake fare.

Re: Google Flight Search

#234

Post by frankiewarren »

This makes a ton of sense to me. Users already trust Google with search and connecting people with airlines has baked-in revenue. This also has tremendous advertising potential. Imagine if local restaurants could target ads at people who will be traveling to the area in the next three months.

Re: Google Flight Search

#235

Post by jonjamz »

awj wrote: post #201
maratd wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is there a giant search bar at the top of the screen? This will be (if it isn't already) integrated with their search product. In other words, it'll be a part of search. You'll search for "flight from ny to sf" and that's what you'll see. Perfectly natural for them to have a consistent UI in their search product. > Why is there a giant map at the top of the screen? It's interactive. Try pulling the marker from…

> Try pulling the marker from one location to another. For me it just drags the map (Chrome 13.0.782.220 / OS X). > I may have a general area of where I want to end up, but this lets you choose exactly where through a visual map. Again, very cool. ...is a map really helpful for this? How often do you want to go somewhere but not know the name? I'd rather they take all of that map space and use it for something else.…

> I wouldn't mind something that says "hey, you could save $x on this flight if you went to $nearby_airport instead of the one you're on."

Definitely. They could also just overlay that on the map like they do the popular destinations.

Re: Google Flight Search

#236

Post by jonjamz »

tamersalama wrote: post #51

This is just beautiful. Data matrix is innovative, UI is out of the way, slick and to the point interface, and it even takes you to the correct 3rd party booking pages. I can't wait till this is implemented in Canada. Kayak beware!

> Kayak beware!

This definitely looks better than Kayak. ^_^

Re: Google Flight Search

#238

Post by modeless »

adaml_623 wrote: post #66

My First Impression: No international flights yet: Fail but not surprising That's okay I want to fly from NY to Vegas next year. No flights for April 2012: Fail that was not expected. I don't really understand why Google launches stuff like this when it has a lovely user interface but is a bit halfbaked in terms of the data that they've put in. I guess I'll go back in a years time when they remind me about it.

Many airlines don't allow you to book tickets more than 6 months in advance at their own websites. I don't think it's surprising that Google didn't prioritize 6+ month advance ticket purchases.

Re: Google Flight Search

#239

Post by blub »

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…

Stupid lawsuits about product looks are almost irrelevant to the society and individual.

A centralized database of individual's profiles is a much more dangerous tool. Google's efforts to destroy the idea of online privacy are much more dangerous to society.

Re: Google Flight Search

#240

Post by blub »

teej wrote: post #63
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.

Or, you know, they could just be taking a cut for connecting users with flights better and faster than their competitors. But please, keep thinking that google is hoping to populate some evil database with precious, precious data to make their advertising 0.000001% better. There's no way they are considering the obvious and profitable notion of getting serious about travel search.

Oh, but Google is very serious about ads. They will make this product as good as it needs to be to sell ads, and no better.

Making money from selling things and leaving the user's data alone is just not in the DNA of this company.

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