Google Flights


Google Flights is an online flight booking search service which facilitates the purchase of airline tickets through third-party suppliers.

History

In April 2011, the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division approved Google's $700 million purchase of ITA Software. On September 13, 2011 Google launched Google Flights, which used algorithms gained from this purchase.

Features

An innovation of Google Flights is that it allows open-ended searches based on criteria other than the destination; for example, a user may search for flights within a range of times and a budget and be offered various destination choices. Alternatively, a user can select a destination, and Google Flights will calculate every price for each day of the next 12 months, visualized in a graph or table. This allows users to easily spot the cheapest date to fly to the destination.

Response

The service was immediately compared to competitors such as Expedia, Orbitz, Kayak.com, and Bing.
Shortly after the site launched, Expedia testified to the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee that Google failed to keep a promise to rank Google Flight listings below the listings of competitors in a Google search.

International availability