<p>Google's purchase of the Massachusetts-based ITA on Thursday raises prospects of a battle over the lucrative sector between the Web search giant and Expedia, Kayak, Orbitz, Microsoft's Bing Travel and other sites.<br /><br />Google said its acquisition of ITA, which was founded in 1996 by a team of computer scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "will create a new, easier way for users to find better flight information online."<br /><br />"The acquisition will benefit passengers, airlines and online travel agencies by making it easier for users to comparison shop for flights and airfares," the Mountain View, California-based company said in a statement.<br /><br />"Airline travel and search are a terrific opportunity for more innovation, more investment and more interesting products," Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said in a conference call. "There's clearly more room for competition and innovation here."<br /><br />Google stressed that it "won't be setting airfare prices and has no plans to sell airline tickets to consumers."<br /><br />"Our goal is to build a tool that drives more traffic to airline and online travel agency sites where customers can purchase tickets," the company said.<br /><br />ITA, a 500-person firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, specializes in organizing airline data, including flight times, availability and prices.<br /><br />Its QPX flight data organization tool uses algorithms to combine flight information from airlines, including pricing and availability, to create a searchable database.</p>
<p>Google's purchase of the Massachusetts-based ITA on Thursday raises prospects of a battle over the lucrative sector between the Web search giant and Expedia, Kayak, Orbitz, Microsoft's Bing Travel and other sites.<br /><br />Google said its acquisition of ITA, which was founded in 1996 by a team of computer scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "will create a new, easier way for users to find better flight information online."<br /><br />"The acquisition will benefit passengers, airlines and online travel agencies by making it easier for users to comparison shop for flights and airfares," the Mountain View, California-based company said in a statement.<br /><br />"Airline travel and search are a terrific opportunity for more innovation, more investment and more interesting products," Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said in a conference call. "There's clearly more room for competition and innovation here."<br /><br />Google stressed that it "won't be setting airfare prices and has no plans to sell airline tickets to consumers."<br /><br />"Our goal is to build a tool that drives more traffic to airline and online travel agency sites where customers can purchase tickets," the company said.<br /><br />ITA, a 500-person firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, specializes in organizing airline data, including flight times, availability and prices.<br /><br />Its QPX flight data organization tool uses algorithms to combine flight information from airlines, including pricing and availability, to create a searchable database.</p>