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

5 pointsby lastofthemojito6 hours ago2 comments

kay_o3 hours ago
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
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
similar to 1) the least common denominator end users cannot reliable handle a "multi city" flight
- lastofthemojito5 minutes ago
  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.
borderprepper5 hours ago
[dead]