Google remembers it has an air-fares API, takes the usual action

Where have we heard this before? – in 2010, Google acquired ITA Software for US$700 million to get at its QPX airline booking software; in 2011, it reached an agreement with US regulators to complete the purchase; and 2018, it'll kill it.

The Chocolate Factory has announced end-of-service for the QPX Express API will come on April 10, 2018, and has ended new user registrations for the flight search service.

That's a far cry from Google's Kool-Aid at the time of the purchase: “How cool would it be if you could type "flights to somewhere sunny for under $500 in May" into Google and get not just a set of links but also flight times, fares and a link to sites where you can actually buy tickets quickly and easily?”

Back in 2011, the Department of Justice (DoJ) was perhaps justifiably concerned that the ITA acquisition would create a new monopoly, so it required Google to promise to continue support for ITA customers, and required that it continue software R&D for the product.

We are, however, well past the five-year period the DoJ demanded Google continue supporting QPX, Google's got the ITA data and there's no reason to be nice to others who want to use it. ®