Google Knows How Late Your Flight Is Running
Duncan Riley
41 comments »
Google has announced a flight tracking service that provides up-to-date information for those flying over the Christmas/ New Year break.
The service delivers details as to whether a flight is on time or delayed as well providing the estimated departure and arrival times. Using the service is as simple as typing in the flight number into Google, and the flight details will be delivered as the first search result (airline and flight number, or use an abbreviated version with a space between the airline code and flight number.) The service competes in part with Orbitz’s Traveler Update service, although Orbitz does offer associated airport information as well.
Data for the service is pulled from Flightstats.com.
Amazing Google’s reach is!
It seems to work even with the abbreviated airline indicator.
Almost unbelievable how companies let Google tap into their data. This is great news though! simplicity of Google is unlike any other
the ‘define’ query has been one of my favorites
Cool. I wonder if they could keep track of my teenage daughters menstrual cycle, while they’re at it. They could send her a daily text message, “Please proceed to ingest your birth control pill as instructed to delay onset early pregnancy.” Thank you. If not, we will call your mama.
sincerely,
angela hayden
art goddess
^ LOL, on a serious note, I wonder what the arrangement will be between Google and the sites it taps its info from?
Saadiq (#2)
correct, it didn’t work for me as I was typing in QF73 instead of QF 73 (with a space). amended the post.
Wow, they are trying to put their foot in every door. But i guess someone will get richer
Dale
http://dzrbenson.com/blog/
… amazing! sheesh
fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
“Ballmer”: Your comments are becoming increasingly less and less funny… if they ever were to begin with.
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Duncan, I’ll expect the “Google purchases FlightStats.com for $xx million” post tomorrow
They did this a year or so ago (maybe more) for a short spell and then the “feature” just vanished one day… glad they’ve brought it back…
good feature - will probably continue to role out …
like google UPS tracking ..
- when a feature is found by accident (but is amazingly useful) perhaps the rate at which it gets used (or frequency) is better in the long term than if found by advertising.
.rb
This isn’t that new. I’ve been using Google for this for months.
google is just amazing, i love how they want to make everything so convenient and to save time.
Googles his Google with his Google….
is there anything left that Google does not do or plan to do?
why not just go to flightstats.com …
@16 because Google want to become the 1 stop shop for all your information…
This post got me thinking about the other features that are built into Google that a lot of people forget are there…I did a post at my blog…check it out if you want by clicking my name.
@search maybe if there were better search results it’d be better… I know I”m not the only one who still has to search 4-5 times before I give up still not finding my answer exactly. I just don’t see search results themselves getting better. Still plenty of dead links, often dubious Wikipedia info, and outdated blog postings that come up in my searches. Thank goodness for the paid search b/c half the time those obsessive PPC people understand my search habits better than the organic results do.
Google knows too much!!!
#16 Because not everyone has an i-phone or an expensive data plan. SMS is a very easy proposition.
I didn’t think this was anything new?
If you guys take a look at the resulting URL from clicking on the link provided by the Google results, you’ll see that this is a CPC campaign by FlightStats. Google isn’t paying them anything, it’s the other way around.
Hi Duncan,
This feature was there since long time, and i used this in the past as well. Not sure what is new about this….
Following link would give what all can be sent to “GOOGLE” via SMS and what we can get..
http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/mobile/sms/
definitely not new, i noticed this before my trip to miami back in August.
#19, and all:
I don’t understand why everyone is so excited: for one, it’s not google’s core business (whether it’s search or webapps) and it’s cluttering their search results. Also, if Chris #23 is right - it’s including pay-for-result which in my oppinion lowers google ‘neutral’ standard. And also, I too don’t think their search results get any better, maybe SEO guys get smarter faster than google can invent new ways of indexing pages…
#16, we can do this from Google Toolbar itself instead of going to flightstats.com. Or if you are in a e-mail or web page, just select the text and hit the search button in the toolbar, it does the same trick and saves time and typing another URL address.
” when a feature is found by accident (but is amazingly useful) perhaps the rate at which it gets used (or frequency) is better in the long term than if found by advertising.”
Im not sure I would agree with this. an avarage google user does not find out about new features reading techcrunch. I guess google could add a small tooltip with ‘new feature’ somewhere on their page as they have it in gmail. more people would now about new features, still that might not be there goal as beta functionality is safer to test with fewer users.
Search engine becoming better day by day! seems tracking people will be much easier in coming future.
It downloads a Google Earth file and shows the flight as a location in Google Earth, updating every 1 minute. Perhaps not terribly useful, but fun for airplane and map geeks like me. I think this is the coolest thing EVER!
Parul
http://www.bhopu.com
I like it, they should focus more on small things like this than on keep buying companies
If you’re on a Mac, you can just use the Flight Tracker widget. It comes pre-installed on all Macs. If you have an older Mac (e.g. iBook) you can still download the widget…for free.
It just bothers me that everyone bows down every time Google decides to copy or encroach upon someone else’s idea.
Oh well, on goes Googliath!
The easiest and cheapest way to do this from a mobile device is to send an SMS to Google (466453 - spells “Google”). Just input the airline’s full name or abbreviation (e.g., either “United” or “UAL”) followed by a space and the flight number.
For example, to track American flight 123, send the following SMS to 466453:
AA 123
Within a few seconds you’ll get a complete flight update from FlightStats.com. I have frequently found it to be even more accurate than what the screens at the gate show.
I’ve posted a detailed piece on my blog about some of the things you can do via Google SMS. See it here:
http://www.thewirelesswizard.c.....iries.html
Old news. For as long as I can remember, you could type in flight numbers into google (e.g., AA 123) and the first result took you to the FAA’s website that actually showed you a map of the country and where that flight was at that instant.
Anyone try this with their mobile platform? I use it for sports updates religiously and it would be a great feature to use on the go.
Go Google Go! Get in where you fit in. This proves that they are not afraid to operate in any space. Only problem is they are getting too big too fast. Things are going to get very political.
Google strikes again. good job.