Search giant Google has signed a definitive agreement to acquire ITA Software, a Cambridge, Massachusetts flight information software company, for $700 million, subject to adjustments.

Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO of Google, stated that ITA’s technology opens new possibilities for the company to “create new ways for users to more easily find flight information online”.

The deal will allow Google to pursue the creation of new flight search tools that will enable users to find better flight information more easily on the Internet.

ITA Software’s QPX software uses algorithms to combine and parse multiple sets of flight information from airlines, including pricing and availability data, to create an up-to-date database that can be searched across.

On its decision to go with this acquisition, Google stated, “We think we can make more significant innovations and bigger breakthroughs in online flight search by combining our engineering expertise with ITA Software’s than we would by simply licensing ITA Software’s data service.”

At the moment, Google says it doesn’t have detailed plans to share about how new flight search tools will be triggered or appear on Google results pages, or how they will be monetised.

The transaction is subject to normal pre-merger notification procedures in the United States only. ITA Software’s European revenues aren’t large enough to warrant European regulatory review.

Current offering

Google currently offers two travel search features. First, its flight tracker search feature enables users to see flight status for arriving and departing US flights. When users type the name of the airline and the flight number into the search box, Google will return updated flight information from flightstats.com.

Second, it offers a travel search feature to help users looking to book travel. For example, search for [New York to SFO] and Google offers the option to specify a date range and choose from a variety of online travel services to see results.

Both features are aimed at improving search quality and neither is based on any financial compensation to or from Google. Neither feature relies on data from ITA Software.

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