As you may know, Google acquired ITA Software last year after a round of regulatory scrutiny and a big stink raised by Google competitors (as they banded together with Google’s arch nemesis Microsoft on the FairSearch Coalition). Last fall, Google launched its Flight Search feature based on the technology from the acquisition.
There’s an announcement out from Cape Air today, talking about how the airline is debuting a new airline reservation system powered by Google and ITA. The airline says its customers will be benefit by:
Effortless shopping of one-way, round-trip and multi-city flights and fares.
Self-service tools that allow a customer to quickly process changes to reservations and itineraries.
A system comprised of flexible reservation features designed with one idea in mind – to ensure the customer’s booking flow is easy and secure.
“Our team at ITA has been working to build a modern airline platform from scratch on open systems technology,” said Jeremy Wertheimer, Vice President, Google, Travel, “Cape Air has been the perfect partner in helping this effort”.
“Today’s announcement is an important step for the future of Cape Air. We’re proud of the achievement made by our teams to build the next generation in travel technology,” says Cape Air CEO Dan Wolf. “Our customers expect the best from Cape Air, and by investing in technology, our passengers and employees will benefit by faster and easier handling of booking and changing reservations”
I would imagine that we’ll start seeing similar implementations from other airlines in the future.