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I just discovered Google’s latest update while figuring out plan B at Kraków Airport (KRK) in Poland.
The popular flight search tool now shows live flight delays on the day of travel. Whether it’s in a test phase, an error, or something they’ve rolled out quietly, we don’t know yet.
Here’s what I just discovered.
Google Flights has long been my favorite way to search for flights. In fact, I’d go as far as to say it’s probably my most visited website after Upgraded Points.
As I use Google Flights so often, it’s easy to notice any updates and changes to the site. Today was one of those days.
My flight from Kraków to London City (LCY) via Amsterdam (AMS) with KLM was hit with a rolling delay. The Air France app hadn’t provided me with any information about a possible missed connection, yet. To get ahead of the game in case I needed to rebook, I hopped onto Google Flights to see what flights were left from Amsterdam to London after my scheduled flight of 6:25 p.m.
The top 4 options Google Flights displayed all showed “delayed” plus the length of time in a box, both in bright red. I’d never seen this before.
To check the new “delayed” alert wasn’t referring to historical data of the average delay of the flights in question, I hopped onto FlightRadar24 which displayed showed the exact same flights as delayed. The time of the delays were out by around 30 minutes.
I was curious to see if the same alerts were shown for long haul flight searches out of Europe. Indeed, an accurate, live delay notification applied to a long haul international flight from London (LHR) to New York (JFK).
I’m not sure what the true purpose of this new function is, as it only really benefits people in similar situations to me who are in need of a last minute flight. Even still, it would only be useful for a small number of people who could book a later departing flight if, for example, the next available option was delayed until after the later flight’s departure.
As for those checking up on the flight status of a friend, family member, or colleague, the flight disappears once the flight is past its scheduled departure time as my delayed flight from Kraków no longer appeared. It’s absence could also be because the flight had no seats left available to book. That would check out, as I was upgraded to business class, likely because of an oversold economy cabin.
Google Flight’s new “delayed” feature is an interesting one. While it was of some use to me today, it’s not something that will benefit the vast majority of people who are booking flights further in advance than for the same day.