physixfan 2024-05-22 2024-05-22
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Southwest Airlines (WN)
Southwest Airlines has always been a bit special in the airline industry, previously blocking all third-party OTAs. Therefore, you couldn’t find Southwest flights on Google Flights, Expedia, or anywhere else; you had to visit Southwest’s own website or app to see their flight prices for comparison. There was a browser plugin in 2023 that allowed you to see Southwest flights on Google Flights, but it was quickly shut down by Southwest, showing how strict they are about not sharing their data with third parties.
Today, one of our readers found that: Southwest flights can now be searched on Google Flights! As shown in the image below, the cheapest direct flight from SJC to HNL turned out to be Southwest:
Interestingly, the Southwest logo appeared as a gray default icon, not displaying the actual Southwest logo, which may indicate that the integration is not yet fully complete.
This makes it much easier for everyone to search for Southwest tickets, using just one platform, Google Flights, to compare prices!
From my brief search, other OTAs like Expedia still cannot find Southwest flights. It seems there might be an exclusive partnership with Google Flights. It remains to be seen whether Southwest will eventually decide to also partner with other OTAs.
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