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Ask HN: What is Google Flights' business model and has it changed recently?

1 points by lastofthemojito ↗ HN
I'm wondering if anyone has any more info than I do regarding why Google offers Google Flights? As far as I know there's no paid version of the software and Google doesn't take a cut of any sales they refer. It seems like it must cost Google a fair amount of money to run and doesn't have any direct revenue source.

I also wonder if anything has shifted recently - I think Google Flights has been around for over a decade, and for most of that time it felt aligned with my interests - simplifying the process of finding the cheapest flights to get me where I want to go.

Unfortunately, it has recently seemed degraded in several ways.

1) It doesn't reliably offer round-trips made of 2 one-way tickets from 2 different airlines. 2) It doesn't reliably pick up new destinations. I recently saw an airline added a route that would allow me to reach a desired destination in 2 segments rather than 3. I excitedly searched for such itineraries and couldn't find them on Google Flights (but I could on the website for the airline, whose flights are generally on Google Flights). 3) I live in an area served by multiple airports. Similar to my first issue, I feel like Google Flights no longer reliably shows me round-trip itineraries that depart from one airport and arrive an another (e.g. depart from Heathrow, arrive back in London at Gatwick). Once I pick a departure airport it

Is it just me hitting some bugs or hiccups? Or is Google actively degrading Google Flights for some reason (too expensive?). Is Google trying to simplify things for naive users? Or is Google Flights abandonware within Google that is running without much ongoing support?

10 comments

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kay_o
simplify + they own itasoftware. search on https://matrix.itasoftware.com/search

1) It doesn't reliably offer round-trips made of 2 one-way tickets from 2 different airlines.

this is an extremely bad thing for the baseline normal person and will fuck over normal users hard because they are not competent enough to handle this. most sites do not do this, kayak only does this with piles of warnings to click through and call it a hacker fare

lastofthemojito
Man, I loved ITA Software's Matrix tool back in the day. It's a shame Google hasn't kept it updated, as I understand it they've left it running (and even made some UI changes?) but the backend is now rather stale and doesn't share data with Google Flights. For example, it doesn't know about Southwest Airlines even though Google Flights added them a couple years ago, so for my most commonly flown route ITA Matrix returns "Looks like there's no flights satisfying your query!" even though I know there are several nonstops per day.

Maybe the simplicity thing for the typical person is the reason behind these recent changes, it's just a shame as I really valued the previous behavior and there doesn't seem to be any toggle to get it back.

kay_o
as of at least a few years ago i remember southwest suing anyone that posts their fares without permission, scrapers, (kiwi maybe?) and they don't participate in data feed redistributions
lastofthemojito
Yeah, that used to be the case. Now Southwest is on Google Flights, Skyscanner, Kayak, Expedia, you name it. For the past few years Southwest has been undoing pretty much everything that it did differently in favor of following typical industry practices.
kay_o
I wonder if google flights and ita software are legally distinct entities enough that southwest only signed a redistribution agreement with one of them..
roryirvine
Both of those are pretty standard for shorthaul flights in Europe - many airlines simply don't sell return tickets, so there's no difference in booking each leg of a round trip with separate airlines or between separate airport fares.

And even sticking with the same airline it's entirely normal to want to see options for all available airports in or near a city, and even booking direct through the airline website you'll tend to be offered flights from, say, London (Any) to Belfast (Any) by default.

The popular European services like Skyscanner handle this properly, and it's mostly taken for granted that it will just work. Google Flights used to, so now looks broken by comparison.

kay_o
I fly very often in the states and it seems to be the opposite situation -- you get little to no passenger rights for a rebooking or delay so you ideally want everything on a single reservation with a single airline so they will want to rebook you if something falls through. On average I do not even get enough of a food voucher to afford a sandwich.

Outside of NYC, DC and SF/LA Ive not been able to think of a city that has more than one commercial high traffic airport. Interesting that, I assume part of it is due to distance-to-next-airport in Europe too?