1) Glad to see the big G is taking an interest here.
2) Definitely bummed that it's US only, prior to seeing that post I was already assuming that that is a temporary thing, but in the short term it's kept me from spending much time playing with it.
3) The UI work looks very nice and in keeping with Google style, even so. I'll definitely check it out more when my next plans are for US travel rather than international.
4) For the hardcore folks here, the ITA Matrix interface will probably always make more sense - although some way to get it (or a prettified but equally functional version of it) from the flights page would be nice.

... starting with a large fortune, of course.

If I'm a founder of Google, I don't really want to downgrade myself to being a mere millionaire - Branson's old saw about the easiest way to become a millionaire is to be a billionaire and buy an airline is still pretty true.

waste of time
 

It's a useless site. I hope no energy is drained from the superior ITA matrix tool.

• Google flights does not find the best airfare
• it lacks the expressive power of ITA
• scope of inventory is limited to common databases (no LCC scraping)

It has all of the shortcomings of ITA, and it lacks what ITA is really good at. And it introduces nothing unique. It's a completely redundant tool, so I won't be using it even if intl flights are added.

If you want expressive power, ITA software trumps.

If you want the lowest airfare, you have to use sites that are capable of multiple bookings (dohop or skyscanner), and you still have to check the sites that scrape the LCCs (listed here).

I should add that there is a better positioned thread on Google Flights in online travel booking bidding agencies.

For now, maybe. Google do have a track record of continually improving their services and adding more features. I suspect they view this as version 0.1.

Google has a track record of dumbing down search. They keep the syntax watered-down so non-technical users can use their tools. For all the simplicity, their engines have to be very sophisticated to try to guess what the user really wants -- and this still does not achieve results that you can get with a more sophisticated query language.

E.g., what if you want to find all content where the word chocolate appears within 3 words of the word coconut? This capability existed before Google came into existence; on Lexus-Nexus you would search for "chocolate w/3 coconut". The same search is impossible on google, because google is designed for simple users.

Google is good at coming up with the best results for a poorly specified query. But what advanced users prefer are decent results from a well specified query.

what do you mean
 

what do you mean better positioned? Maybe since it is only four posts it is easier to read on one page?

Not ready for prime time.

To test it out, I was just checking LGA-DCA nonstop and I could not find the airline I usually use for this route. I wonder if you've heard of it. It's called Delta.

+1 for needing to show international flights

Just tried it out on my Galaxy Tab. The interface does not work well . I could not get the calendar to change dates by the month, only by going day by day. A tedious task if looking for fligjts several months away.

Same here. None of the regular/popular/frequent DL and WN flights that I fly out of BOI showed in the query. Cute idea (I'm a Google technology fan) but of no value to me at this point.

no DSM-MKE service listed..... :(

Then you google for "chocolate AROUND(3) coconut". Truly.