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Google Flights now predicts delays, tells you exactly what you’re missing out on with ‘Basic Economy’ rates

Booking a flight can be a pain, especially when the fine details aren’t clear. To make things easier, Google is updating its Flights tool to make it clear what you’ll be getting with a ticket, and it’s even going to start predicting delays on flights.

First announced earlier this month, Google Flights now shows the various tiers available when you’re buying a ticket, as well as what you get with those different price points.

As VentureBeat points out, airlines have started pushing “basic economy” seating since Delta kicked off the trend in 2012. These seats typically come with fewer amenities, such as a lack of overhead carry-on storage. While the cheaper prices are welcome, they usually aren’t a worthwhile tradeoff.

The biggest problem with these “last class” tickets, though, is that when you’re purchasing a ticket it’s not always obvious that you are buying that tier, or what you’ll lose. With Google Flights, though, travelers can easily see what each class is, what it offers, and what it costs on United, Delta, and American flights.

Along with that, Flights is using Google’s smarts to improve what it can tell you about delayed flights. Not only can it tell you when a flight has been delayed, but also why that flight was delayed. It can even try to predict if a flight might be delayed.

Google does all of this using historical data, status on other flights, and, of course, machine learning to create these predictions. Google does say, however, that it will only mention a potential delay if the service is around 80% confident in the likelihood of a delay. This isn’t something you’d want to adjust your travel time to the airport on, but it might be handy if you’re trying to decide if you want to stop at that overpriced restaurant on the way to your terminal…


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Avatar for Ben Schoon Ben Schoon

Ben is a Senior Editor for 9to5Google.

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