Online giant Google has signed an agreement to buy ITA Software, one of the leading providers of airline travel software.  The deal, for $700 million, is expected to raise more antitrust issues for competitors and the US regulators that have been scrutinizing Google’s every move lately.  Google CEO Eric Schmidt said on a conference call yesterday that he expects “that it would be a significant review” and because of that, could not estimate when the deal would finalize.
ITA Software provides software that organizes and compiles varying airline travel data such …

Alan Joyce, CEO of Australian carrier Qantas Airways, spoke positively of the future at the International Air Transport Association’s annual meeting earlier this week.  Despite the problems with service interruptions in European countries from the ash clouds a few weeks ago, Joyce says that the company’s business class travel was showing definite signs of an upswing.
While number of business class passengers for the first five months of the year were down 7% since before the tanking of the global economy, it is a signicant improvement over the previous six month …