Google Flight Search may be revived and revitalised as the company is reportedly working with budget airline Ryanair to “completely transform how consumers search for, select and buy airline tickets” according to the Irish Independent.
Google Flight Search has been around since the company acquired ITA in 2011 and launched in Europe March 2013. But with the service missing low-cost airlines such as Ryanair, EasyJet and FlyBe it has failed to make much progress.
"There are some very exciting developments with Google, where we have been working with them on sharing the pricing,"said Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary. The service will “blow comparison sites like Skyscanner out of the water" once the project goes live by the end of March, asserted O'Leary.
Competing with many of the organisations it serves, Google’s new service may cause some consternation from sites that provide similar online travel and flight-comparisons - which rely on Google AdWords to drive traffic.
"Because Google, being Google, want to show all of the prices from all of the airlines on display. They don't want to charge us, they make all of their money out of advertising," explained O'Leary. We can safely assume that Google will start to stake out partnerships with other major airline providers, ferries and rail services in Europe in further steps to create a truly successful all round transportation comparison service.
Back in November we reported Bing’s integration with TripAdvisor, but Microsoft doesn't seem to have caused much of a ripple, it isn't experiencing its own 'TripAdvisor effect' as yet.
