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Google updates Flight Search for Android, iOS
Remember when Google launched its desktop-only Flight Search service back in the fall? Well, now it's made the travel checking tool both Android and iOS friendly. All the key flight-finding features of the desktop version are present: search, discover by location, filter by price, airline and calendar view, and have been optimized for the small screen. Bear in mind that this isn't a native app, El Goog has just tweaked the web-service for the respective mobile browsers, hoping to make those spur of the moment travel plans less taxing. Hit the source link below for further info.
Google launches Flight Search service, Kayak shrugs it off (video)
Google's DOJ-approved acquisition of ITA has finally borne fruit, in the form of Flight Search -- a new tool that aims to streamline the chaos that is online travel booking. The Mountain View contingent unveiled the interface yesterday, with an "early look" at what appears to be a fairly straightforward service. Once you enter your starting point, destination, price range and duration, a list of results will appear in ascending order of fare and duration, below a map displaying each flight's trajectory. From there, you can filter your results by airline, number of layovers or specific departure times, before booking your itinerary on the carrier's site (Google was careful to point out that flight selection and results will not be "influenced by any paid relationships"). At the moment, the service is restricted to a select group of US cities and only features round-trip economy class flights, but Google says future updates and expansions are on the way. We're eager to see how the company dresses up this relatively bare bones platform and, perhaps more importantly, how competing travel sites react to it. Kayak, for one, responded with confident nonchalance to Flight Search, explicitly describing it as an inferior product. "We're confident in our ability to compete, and we believe our flight search technology is superior," the company said, in a statement. "We recognize Google is a formidable competitor but they haven't been successful in every vertical they've entered." Let the games begin. Demo video after the break.
