Introducing Trabber the Flight Search Engine
By Darren Cronian on Saturday, November 25th, 2006

When I am searching for a flight I don’t have time to search the likes of Google, and then search an airlines website, when you can search the likes of SideStep, or Kayak and go directly to the flight information you require. This is why I can see Google launch a travel product like Yahoo’s FareChase sometime in the foreseeable future.

Introducing Trabber the Flight Search Engine

Anyway, today I received an email to inform me about a flight search engine called Trabber – on first glimpse, the site looks basic, dull, and well, doesn’t look like a travel website at all – but when you put in your search criteria it actually produces good results, from over 30 travel sites, and quickly.

Results come from the likes of Expedia, Orbitz and Priceline – the site is available in Spanish, German and English at the moment, with plans to increase this language base in the future. It’s worth checking out if your looking for a US based internal flight – but wasn’t a great deal of use for long haul flights, with very few results appearing on a flight from New York to London.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.


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10 responses to “Introducing Trabber the Flight Search Engine”

Kevin May | 25 November, 2006 at 9:25 pm

Google claims it will never move away form its basic search product – but it may have to at some point if it comes under pressure from travel search sites such as Sidestep, Kayak, Travelsupermarket, et al.

However it has launched Google Co-op, which is similar to Yahoo!’s Farechase service but allows the user to embed the search functionality into a blog or website.

We launched the Travolution Travel Search Engine in October and it only searches for products on specified sites [as many as you like]

try it out:

top-right-hand navigation bar on http://www.travolution.blogspot.com

klm, ed, travo

PS – you’re right: Trabber.com is pretty basic and uninspiring.

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Darren Cronian | 25 November, 2006 at 9:47 pm

Kev, I know Esteban said that they would never launch a Google Travel product, but I can’t really see them do anything BUT launch one. What are they going to do if travellers move away from Google and towards sites like SideStep?

I’ve not had a play yet with the Google co-op.

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Kevin May | 25 November, 2006 at 10:08 pm

a vertical search tool within any market on Google would be a major leap away from the Google philosophy.

because of Google’s listed status it would be hugely damaging for any of their representatives to say anything that would essentially mark a major shift from their original model.

Co-Op is a vertical search engine, but it is created by users, not Google, ensuring Google’s core product – natural and PPC search – is not diminshed.

Co-Op can be used for any sector – travel, financial services, etc. it is Troogle, in some respects, but could easily be anything else…

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Daniel | 4 December, 2006 at 10:09 pm

Kevin,

I do not really understand your comment about Trabber, could you please explain it?

Thanks.

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Kevin May | 4 December, 2006 at 10:16 pm

Daniel: what part of the comment do you not understand?

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Daniel | 4 December, 2006 at 10:56 pm

Kevin,

Not really understand why Trabber is “pretty basic and uninspiring”. Do you have any suggestion to improve it?

I think the point of a travel search engine is basically allowing users to find the best fares. We could have added many useless features to make Trabber look cooler, but is that the point?

Thanks for the feedback.

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Kevin May | 4 December, 2006 at 11:35 pm

ah, you must be Daniel Trabanca?

personal opinion, and not that of Travolution, i must add first of all.

my comments are based on seeing a number of travel search engines that have very little to offer up front in terms of the inital user experience. it is “pretty basic and uninspiring”, but i agree with Darren that the results came back pretty quickly, which is impressive.

yes, obtaining the best fares is the most important aspect, but a little more colour/photography would go a long way to improving the design of the site.

apologies if you were offended. :-)

klm, ed, travo

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Darren Cronian | 4 December, 2006 at 11:40 pm

Welcome Daniel.

Just to add, whilst the site does what it’s being created to do, compared to other flight searchs like skyscanner.net momondo.com etc the site is very sparse, and plain.

Like Kevin has mentioned, you could do with adding some colour, and photography for it to stand out above the rest.

Hope this constructive critism helps.

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dan | 5 December, 2006 at 11:04 am

Hi Kevin/Darren,

I am not offended at all. I just wanted to understand the comment. I really appreciate the feedback as we are trying to include most of Trabber users feedback into the site design.

We might reconsider changing colours and design, however we have to discard adding fotography as the main idea of the project is usability. I would appreciate any comment or idea.

Thanks for your help.

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Nelson | 26 November, 2007 at 6:05 pm

Trabber is very interesting, however nobody pointed out that another search engine called

http://www.weefly.com. Unlike other websites such as momondo… it is possible to search multiple destinations and the chepest weekend to travel.
Nelson

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