The travel search engines made their debut back in 2000 and a lot of career travel agents had to change jobs. We saw a lot of sites such as Orbitz and Travelocity surfacing. However, the idea was soon consumed with cheap ads and stupid policies. However, Google did take up the same idea in 2011 and over the course of years has greatly improved it. Google launched Flight Search for public back in September 2011. Although it was just starting out back then, the user friendly interaction, associated with Google, was definitely imparted to the service.
Google again attracted quite a lot of attention in December 2012 when it came up with the idea of Flight Explorer that aimed at bringing bar graphs to the users that showed them prices for airfare for the whole year. This allowed the users to make an informed decision on when to fly and where to fly with economical price and where to stop on their trip.
However, since it is not a frontline service by Google, not many know the fact that Google has in fact integrated Flight Search and Google Maps, enabling the users to plan their trip from the departure city to the destination where they can select cities and instantly see the airfare. This June 2014, Google has released some updates to the system that allow the user to tackle the high airfare problem by making use of Day/Month in the Maps mode. For those of travelers who like to be a bit adventurous, the company has incorporated the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ option as well.
How is this helpful to the end user? Let’s explain it via an example; suppose you are in NY and plan on visiting Europe in August. Now a general search will indicate that the cost is going to be around $1,000 for most cities. But employ Google and you’ll find that the Danish city Copenhagen has a fare of $600 for a direct, round trip flight during late August and early September. How many hours were spent in finding this out? To be honest, hardly a few minutes because all of it is almost instantaneous. This is where other search engines lack; they are slow. Google has definitely touched a lot of different markets and aspects of technology but rest assured, it has not forgotten its roots and continues to strengthen and deepen them.
What we are trying to say is that Google started as a search engine and has since then maintained that image quite well, rather improved it a lot over the past few years! So check out this new google flight planner tool and save some serious money on your next trip abroad.