The changes to the appearance - more blue and more colour in general - might not be inconsistent, but the complete emphasis of form over function does seem inconsistent to me.

Also, a semi-frequent flyer colleague of mine just stopped by my desk to ask a question about flights and mentioned that he thought Google Flights - which he has only used sparingly in the past - looked "a lot worse" and was "much less user-friendly" lately.

Does not work for me anymore.

Incognito. Browsers other than Chrome.

:(

Edit: nevermind. It's back now. Not sure for how long.

Seem to be closing the "loopholes"
 

Thanks for that.

At first it was easy - the running man. Then emulate IE10. Then the link - "google.com/flights/?f=0".
Really, f%$@ Google flights. They had a good product and ruined it, and now seem to be systematically closing down any option to use the old, good interface.

I guess this is what you can do when you're a monopoly. A very stupid monopoly. :mad::mad:

Unfortunately I had a friend at Google tell me that they're turning down the old version. I can't get the f=SEL trick to work anymore and I think it's safe to say all traces of the usable version of Google Flights will be gone soon.

Was using the older version about ten minutes ago. When I came back, it couldn't connect to the server and refresh sent me to the new Flights.

What a POS.

Right now I can't get any tricks to bring back the old version -- all browsers, private modes, user agents all bow to the new evil master. :mad:
Time to explore other alternatives perhaps?
Any ideas are welcome.

Still working for me using https://www.google.com/flights/?f=0

This gave me hope, so I thought of one last combo to try: Private Mode + Opera + VPN.
Bingo -- let it me stay on the old site when I hit a Turkish-assigned IP (no luck with any others). Still a very tenuous situation.

My guess would be that it's supposed to be an easier UI for people who want to casually book flights (as opposed to the FT community). A lot of the old features of GF were kind of buried in menus. Good for us because we knew exactly where the menus were but probably bad for their usage metrics.
The main thing I hate is how laggy the UI is (although it's gotten better since the early days) and random bugs that pop up (my search got "stuck" and I had to refresh the page/start a new search once or twice).

Anyways, I'll ask and see if I can find the "real" answer.

what a shame! i LITERALLY just used this last night before i went to bed

I hope people provide feedback to make them reconsider....I really dislike this new Google Flights and much prefer the faster, lightweight old version.