Google Flights Could Shift Strategy After Heavy Layoffs

25.08.2023 - 14:26 / skift.com / Dennis Schaal

Especially heavy layoffs at Google Flights, including senior managers and engineers who joined Google with the ITA Software acquisition in 2011, could signal strategy shifts in the company’s multifaceted airline business, Skift has learned.

Any modifications to Google’s airline strategy could potentially have implications for airline partners, global distribution systems Sabre and Amadeus, metasearch rivals such as Kayak and Skyscanner, as well as travelers.

Google delivered its largest layoffs ever — about 12,000 employees, or around 6 percent of its full-time workforce — 10 days ago, and it is believed that firings at Google Flights, which had 100 or more employees on its engineering team alone, reached 10-12 percent.

The cuts at Google Flights especially impacted people who previously worked at ITA Software, which became the foundation of Google Flights, and also Google’s enterprise flights platform, which today powers e-commerce at airline websites including American, Alaska, Air Canada, China Eastern, Delta, United, Iberia, Latam, Turkish, Virgin and others.

“As I hear through social media and the grapevine about other employees who’ve been affected, I find myself amazed at how many brilliant engineers — some of whom I’ve known even before ITA became Google — are now looking for new opportunities,” wrote Stephen Peters, a Google senior software engineer, on LinkedIn. “I count myself lucky to have worked with these fantastic people and wish them the best going forward.”

In addition to Peters, among those axed from Google Flights were James Russell, senior director of engineering for Google Travel, who had 10-12 direct reports; Cynthia Towne, senior product specialist at Google Travel who, before joining ITA in 2007, had 31 years’ experience at Northwest Airlines, and Michael Reilly, who managed the airline pricing team at Google and did a decade at American Airlines before his stint at ITA.

These Google Travel employees had “big voices” on product and engineering issues, said one Google Travel veteran, who was fired with the others and declined to be identified.

Richard Holden, vice president of product management at Google Travel, remains in his leadership position. [See a video of a Skift interview with Holden about Google Travel in September 2022 embedded below.]

Skift reached out to approximately two dozen Google Travel employees, and heard back from a handful. One said many would be reluctant to speak to the press because they are still on the Google payroll through March 31, and would risk their “generous” severance packages.

One source said he was “highly confident” that Google Flights, which debuted in beta in the fall of 2011 and has become a very important source of customers for