
Google flights - recycleme
https://www.google.com/flights/
======
ValentineC
This has been around for some time. I believe they're using technology from
ITA, which was acquired by Google in 2010 [1]:
[http://matrix.itasoftware.com/](http://matrix.itasoftware.com/)

(It's also what most flight hackers use to search for tickets.)

[1] [http://www.google.com/press/ita/](http://www.google.com/press/ita/)

~~~
timdorr
It's now coming up because they're integrating it into the new version of
Maps. If you search for a driving distance that's sufficiently far away, they
will also suggest flights as an alternative.

------
spinchange
One thing you have to be careful of is with connecting flights of differing
airlines. Sometimes it will propose an itinerary that just isn't realistically
possible to make because you won't be able to get to the other airline in
time. I've only encountered this once or twice. Otherwise, I use it all the
time, successfully booking many flights through it.

------
drinkzima
As mentioned above, this launched in mid 2011:
[http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2011/09/early-look-at-
our-f...](http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2011/09/early-look-at-our-flight-
search-feature.html)

Also accompanied by Google Hotel Finder:
[http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/07/google-hotel-
finder...](http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/07/google-hotel-finder.html)
[https://www.google.com/hotelfinder](https://www.google.com/hotelfinder)

------
casca
This is disappointing. With all the data they now have access to through the
ITA purchase, this is still much worse than what I can achieve with ITA Matrix
([http://matrix.itasoftware.com/](http://matrix.itasoftware.com/)).

~~~
ketralnis
We support a lot of that on Hipmunk (e.g.
[http://www.hipmunk.com/flights#;kind=flight&locations=sfo,ve...](http://www.hipmunk.com/flights#;kind=flight&locations=sfo,vegas&dates=Tomorrow,Next%20Week&pax=1))
including the routing language

~~~
dorfsmay
Can you offer a bunch of destination based on a budget on hipmunk? This is the
one particular feature I found different from other sites.

~~~
ketralnis
[http://www.hipmunk.com/cheap-flights/San-
Francisco](http://www.hipmunk.com/cheap-flights/San-Francisco)

------
jpatokal
A handy reminder of why flight search is Hard with a capital H:

[http://www.demarcken.org/carl/papers/ITA-software-travel-
com...](http://www.demarcken.org/carl/papers/ITA-software-travel-
complexity/img0.html)

(ITA being the company purchased by Google)

------
bonsai80
Wow that's ridiculously fast. I'm used to seeing long-running spinners and
"loading" pages.

Anyway, for US travel, no Southwest = no deal for me (not that Google or the
other searches can do anything about that).

~~~
dmethvin
> no Southwest = no deal for me

Agreed, although I always thought the sticking point for SWA was paying
commissions and not data access. For a sample search from BWI-SFO their price
was only about $20 more expensive than the lowest fare ($520).

~~~
paulyg
On the two occasions I have used it, Google flights was able to find me
cheaper tickets than what Southwest offers. It is now my first stop, and then
I double check Southwest to see if they can beat what Google has shown.

------
jsnell
The first impression I got from this was an interesting combination of creepy
and incompetent.

The creepy part: The site gave 5 suggestions for places I might want to fly
to. 3/5 were cities I've traveled to multiple times in the last few years. And
while I might accept e.g. London as a default suggestion for anyone in Europe,
something like Helsinki is a lot harder to justify.

The incompetent part: Google knows damn well I live in Zurich. They have
Google+ profile information, they have my Android information, they have ip
geolocation (which definitely gets my ISP right). So why is the suggested
starting airport 150 km away, in another country? Ridiculous.

~~~
dorfsmay
Maybe your isp is buying ip addresses from a provider there?

(It positions me in Calgary, where I have done the search from).

~~~
jsnell
I used to work a few rooms away from the guys doing Google's IP geolocation
database. I am pretty sure that this city + ISP has good coverage and is well
tested :-) Also, all other location-dependent Google services get it right.

~~~
phlo
As far as I can tell, Flights doesn't "officially" support flights from
Switzerland yet. If you try to select ZRH as your only departure airport,
you'll get an error message stating as much.

If you were recommended flying from MLH (aka BSL), I'd wager it's just the
closest (active) airport to your geolocation. If you were suggested STR, your
geolocation may be off by a bit.

To get some results for flights out of ZRH, select MLH as your departure,
then, on the map, click the marker at MLH. A list of close airports (BSL, BRN)
will pop up. Click "more airpots" and add ZRH to your selection. It then
somewhat works. Take note of the list of unsupported airlines at the bottom of
the map.

------
dreen
Any info on how does it stack up against skyscanner / esky ?

edit: after a few minutes i can say that while the UI is 100x better than the
aforementioned competiton, the flights my usual route i take few times a year
(LDN - KRK) only display the price for the most expensive companies, which
sort of defeats the point of using a crawler/search engine for this. hopefully
they will add easyjet/ryanair/etc soon.

------
ramatgan
Begs me to ask the question, how does most of HN search for flights?

I'm pretty addicted to the kayak +/\- 3 day matrix.

~~~
saryant
Honestly, I just buy from United most of the time unless the price is higher
than I think it should be, then I'll search.

Frequent travelers are generally best served by sticking with a single
airline.

~~~
ValentineC
Something about searching on United:
[http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/16581/does-
browsin...](http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/16581/does-browsing-
ticket-sites-in-incognito-mode-and-or-from-different-ips-result-i)

I've experienced it myself searching on United.com. But yes, sticking with a
single airline's usually a good idea — there are benefits towards acquiring
elite status on a single airline's frequent flyer program (even when we're
talking about airline alliances).

------
ivancdg
For those that live in Europe and want a powerful search engine that includes
low-cost flights (a deal-breaker for me), I recommend Azuon.

[http://azuon.com/en/feature-tour](http://azuon.com/en/feature-tour)

It's incredibly addictive.

Combined with airbnb you can plan some much cheaper and adventurous routes.

The payment plans are as follows:

\- €7.89 for 3 months (subscription)

\- €12.03 for 6 months

\- €16.54 for 12 months

\- €19.87 for 1-year

I've subscribed for 3 months now. It's worth every penny.

~~~
aweb
Thanks! First time I've ever heard of it but it sounds awesome!

Can you provide an example of discount you're able to get with this app and
not with Kayak or Google Flights?

------
kposehn
"our goal will be to refer people quickly to a site where they can actually
purchase flights, and that we have no plans to sell flights ourselves."

By the look of it, this indeed follows the guideline they set. Google has
always had a strong dislike of aggregators, and this certainly could easily be
a big hit to sites like that.

That said, while it is a slick interface, I know quite a few people who are
going to be quite unhappy about this being released.

------
grecy
Wow, type in a place as a destination that doesn't have an airport (like
Flagstaff, United States) and it will give you a map of the area, showing the
lowest price for all the surrounding places.

I had intended to fly into Pheonix and rent a car to drive to Flagstaff, now I
can clearly see where it's cheaper to fly into.

Nice.

------
mato
"Flights from Austria are not supported". Ok, I'll just keep using
[http://matrix.itasoftware.com/](http://matrix.itasoftware.com/).

------
asselinpaul
I crave an API. Really want to play around with some visualisations.

------
dorfsmay
I'm the OP on reddit (posted this morning), note that there are a couple of
other sites that do the same, and some which seem to have a better choice or
airlines and prices.

I put a comment together with all the suggested sites:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1hhqs7/google_fl...](http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1hhqs7/google_flights_choose_dates_and_a_budget_and/cauo9mg)

------
makmanalp
"Flights from Turkey not supported" are you kidding me? I'm guessing they
didn't integrate the ITA stuff yet.

------
sukuriant
This gives me an urge to be spontaneous for a weekend. I don't always want to
know where I'm going until a few days before it; and, knowing where there are
airports and which ones have non-stop flights at a moment's inspection is
actually quite a cool and convenient thing!

~~~
niketdesai
Our friends have a concept called an Orblitz. You got to orbitz.com on
Wednesday and search for the cheapest tickets out of the state to anywhere.
Take a backpack for the weekend and no hotels book - figure it out there.

Has been a blast every time. I actually used the concept at a Noisebridge
party once:

[http://makezine.com/2010/10/13/noisebridges-3rd-birthday-
par...](http://makezine.com/2010/10/13/noisebridges-3rd-birthday-party-end/)

A lot of fun for the winner (who actually beat me in the rock paper scissors
tournament on the way to 'winning')

------
Aifghtly
Is there a reason why they don't include something similar to Bing Flights'
Price Predictor? I haven't actually booked a flight since they released that,
but it seems like a nifty/useful piece of tech that Google would want an
answer to.

------
mark-ruwt
For anyone feeling disappointed, take a look at Flight Explorer. It quickly
became my first step when searching for flights or inspiration.

[https://www.google.com/flights/explore/](https://www.google.com/flights/explore/)

------
sdfjkl
Hmm, Google is missing the flexible dates and calendar view, while
[http://matrix.itasoftware.com/](http://matrix.itasoftware.com/) is missing
EasyJet and presumably other low-cost airlines.

~~~
martinlandau
[http://rense.com/general96/shockingplanerad.html](http://rense.com/general96/shockingplanerad.html)
Who wants to fly when all that radiation is up there from Fukushima? Or is
this rense guy way off the mark about this radiation you get when you fly?

------
RRRA
It's a conspiracy:
[https://www.google.ca/flights/#search;f=SVO;d=2013-07-18;r=2...](https://www.google.ca/flights/#search;f=SVO;d=2013-07-18;r=2013-07-22;mc=m)

;)

------
korussian
"Sorry, flights from South Korea are not currently supported."

Which is fine, because local websites always have 30%+ cheaper rates than
ITAsoftware, Hipmunk et al.

------
devgutt
Does Anyone know any API that I can use to search for flights? or how
expensive or difficult to get an agreement to use ITA software?

------
Roritharr
"Sorry, flights from Germany are not currently supported."

Seriously? Disappointing.

~~~
Ives
Same for Belgium.

~~~
siddboots
And Australia. Seems like this is a long way off from becoming more useful
than the many competitors.

------
hosay123
$700 million and 2 years later, and flight search is _still_ slower than the
first random site I picked (dohop.com).

In the meantime I'm left wondering just how much global travel information now
finds itself in the hands of the US feds as a result of the purchase.

~~~
acchow
What cost $700 million?

~~~
chrislomax
Google bought ITA for 700 million.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/09/technology/09google.html?_...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/09/technology/09google.html?_r=0)

------
informatimago
Made with alien technology. (Common Lisp) ;-)

------
Apocryphon
I wonder if it displays any special flights out of Moscow.

