Google Flight Search launches in five European countries without EasyJet or Ryanair

A year and a half after debuting in the U.S., Google Flight Search expanded with points of sale in the UK, France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands.

While most major European carriers are included, Ryanair and EasyJet are absent.

Google users in those countries — and in regions of those countries — can view airfares in local currencies and can search in English, French, Italian, Spanish, Basque, Catalan, Galician and Dutch, Google says.

Google Flight Search generally presents results from airline websites, and occasionally from online travel agencies, as well.

Google concedes it hasn’t lined up all the airlines it wants in its international launches.

A Google blog post to mark the launch states:

“Sometimes we are not able to show results for every single airline and we will make that clear. We are working to expand our relationship with other airlines, and bring Flight Search to more countries and more languages.”

 

For example, when searching for flights from London to Madrid, EasyJet results show that the fare is unknown, and users would have to search on the EasyJet website to find the fare and book it.

Ryanair is also missing from Flight Search.

“Our goal is to help people quickly turn their intentions into actions by giving them the right answer to their questions, and we would love to include every airline in Flight Search,” a Google spokesperson says. “We believe Flight Search offers a positive experience for users, and look forward to continuing to improve it going forward.”

Google has been criticized for the relatively slow pace of the development of Flight Search, with the international launch expected much earlier than today.