bw100 - 11:39 am on Sep 14, 2011 (gmt 0)

SearchEngineLand has its usual good reporting on this new Google tool
[searchengineland.com ]
including the following observation

Google said it’s still experimenting with the model. It’s not entirely clear what would happen if the selected airline were not an advertiser. Are only advertiser flights being included in the data presented? I assume not. However when most travel sites such as Kayak or Orbitz deliver a user to an airline or hotel site there’s lead-gen fee or bounty paid. And Google may have struck agreements with all the major carriers accordingly.(emphasis is poster's)

This seems to be consistent with their apparent leadgen monetization approach to financial service products in Google Advisor [google.com ]