Google Flight Search Reaches Cruising Altitude

Yesterday, Google added flight information to Web search results. It launched Google Flight Search in September for select U.S. cities. Google Flight Search is powered by technology and expertise from Google's acquisition of ITA Software in 2010, a service that boasted a list of clients including airline websites and booking services like Orbitz and Kayak.
Google recently launched the first version of Google Maps for Android that adds complete building maps inside airports, so now Google can take you all the way from booking the flight to shutting off your phone when the flight attendant asks you to without using any other Web service.

 

This is another step in Google's efforts to be the end-to-end provider of our Web services from the desktop, through our mobile devices, to wherever we're going. If you can Google for flights and book them right there, why go anywhere else?

One brave Hipmunk stands in Google's way, offering a friendly travel search interface and mobile apps that rank flights by "agony." These days, air travel is kind of like being cattle, so an "agony" search is a killer app.
But Google wants to be the default starting place for the Web. As it prunes off excess products and streamlines its services, Google.com becomes an increasingly all-powerful destination. And don't call it Shirley.