(2)
Google has announced that they now provide flight stats right on the search pages.
For the latest information on a flight's status, simply search for an airline and flight number, and the first result will tell you whether your flight is on time or delayed as well as the estimated departure and arrival times.
This is pretty cool, actually. Let's compare this to other flight status tracking on the other big three search engines.
First, the Google stats:
The results are right on the page.
On the other hand, Yahoo has stats but you have to go to another site to get them.
And Ask.com is the same way:
MSN doesn't even have flight tracking:
(Please don't email those people.)
So, what do you think? Who has the best flight stats?
Oh, and of course, if you wanted some real time flight tracking, there are alternatives as presented by Gary Price, but they are not available within the search engines themselves... for now.
Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.
Comments:
Dan Perry
12/19/2007 03:37 pm
Google's is the best, by far. In addition, on my Treo (with Windows Mobile), for the search "aa 123", it shows departure time, arrival time, gates, and a hotlink to American Airlines. Good stuff!
Joe Beaulaurier
12/20/2007 12:51 am
I think Dan makes a good point by bringing his Treo into the equation. Most flight status searches will probably be from mobile devices don't you think? In that case, the results are a bit different: 1) Google (as Dan points out) provides dep/arr times, gate and a link to the airline. 2) Yahoo provides the dep/arr times plus a phone number (this is on a mobile device after all). Actual time, gate and terminal information is behind a link. 3) Ask's mobile search has nothing relevant when searching for aa695 or aa 695. 4) Live also has nothing relevant. As per the usual, Google and Yahoo! mobile search have nearly similar results. And in Yahoo!'s case it's better than the browser search.