Travel sites like Kayak and Orbitz promise their customers the best prices on flights between locations. So does Google, with its new Google Flight Search tool.
The new tool was made possible following the acquisition by Google of airline fare tracker ITA Software. Companies such as Kayak and Orbitz challenged the acquisition, but in April Justice Department approved it, with the caveat that it must continue to license ITA’s software to other companies until 2016.
Kayak’s Chief Marketing Officer Robert Birge says that his company is “confident in our ability to compete.” He says that Kayak’s technology is more advanced, and in fact, Google Flight Service is still in its infancy (for instance, flights are limited to a predetermined number of cities and flights to Canada are not yet available). On the other hand, Google allows people to search by a wide number of variables, including duration of flight and price—though Google has made clear that its results “are not influenced by any paid relationships.”
Google does have the advantage of name recognition and the fact that the first place anyone goes to search for anything is … Google.
