‘Flight Search’ Tool

Google has introduced its ‘Flight Search’ tool in India which allows users to search for flights, their prices, timings, etc directly within the search engine. For people who love to travel, they can go access google.co.in/flights to use this tool. It’s available on desktops and mobile platforms.

Based on preferences and previous searches, the tool will offer the price and duration of flights. Once the dates have been set, users can click to expand the map, which will show them live prices for destinations around the world.

Google also roped in Goibibo as its partner for its flight search.  “Goibibo.com is the first OTA in India to partner with Google for Flight Search. This is in line with our philosophy and core differentiation of delivering the fastest booking experience to our travelers,” said Ashish Kashyap, Founder and CEO of ibiboGroup.

The Google Flight Search tool offers a ton of data constantly. For instance, when you change the departure date, the calendar that appears in the drop-down menu will show the lowest fares for your chosen route on each day.  So in essence if your travel dates are flexible you can actual book based on the day when the ticket is the cheapest. The calendar has a variety of filters you can choose, from Airline, Timing, Price, Date, the Number of stops and even the duration of the flight.

Once the date and departure time is entered, a list of ‘Best flights’, which represents the best trade-off between convenience and price will be displayed. Users can also view other flights by scrolling through the summary list or selecting, “Show longer or more expensive flights”.

 We tried booking a flight which was a Jet Airways one. In such a case, Google gives you the option of going to Jet Airways site to confirm the bookings. Jet Airways has partnered with Google to allow its users to directly book from the feature.

The other option is that users can book via GoIbibo. Google also tells users that they can choose to book via a travel agent, who will charge them extra. Users can even save the itinerary.

Google’s new feature sounds great, yet for most of India’s online portals like ClearTrip, MakeMyTrip and Yatra, this definitely isn’t good news. Previously Economic Times  had reported that other flight aggregators “were considering steps to protect their interests, including a possible complaint to the Competition Commission.” However no such complaint was filed.

For now, Google Flight Search is here and it has got both Jet and GoIbibo as onboard for its plans. For users, this will mean a more simplified way of searching for flights.