14 DAY TRIAL // Google is finally making good use of its lengthy and controversial acquisition of flight data provider ITA Software, by adding more flight search options. Google made the first step a few months ago, but it is now debuting a much more useful integration, albeit for only a few places.
The current flight data integration into search results displays a list of flights for the route you're interested in, time of departure and arrival as well as airlines but not much else.
More detailed data is available under the "Flights" option in the left sidebar which leads to the google.com/flights vertical. Now, it's making the flights OneBox more useful for locations where it has enough data.
"Starting today, we’ll begin showing flight information right in your Google search results on certain flight related searches," it announced.
"For example, if you search for [flights from San Francisco to Las Vegas] you’ll see a table that shows available flights, including duration and prices. You can adjust dates on the page, or click any flight to further research and book your trip," it explained.
For now, Google only provides this type of results for flights in the US, even there not all of them. But it plans to expand the feature in the short term future.
For a long time, Google hasn't had a dedicated flight data feature and simply directed users to sites that specialized in this. Bing's flights search engine on the other hand was lauded.
Google decided to buy ITA software to power a flights search engine, but the company also provides info to other sites and clients, including Bing and specialized travel sites. This conflict of interest delayed the acquisition, but Google was finally able to convince regulators that it planned to play fair.