Microsoft search engine Live Search (http://live.com) in Feb has silently released a new search feature called Flight Status answer. According to a post on Live Search official blog site, this is the first Active Answers campaign, which is intended to ease search users simplying key tasks. If you are a frequent traveler, this new feature is going to be very useful because it includes gate and terminal information, which Google, Yahoo, Ask do not provide. For those who are picking up friends or parents at the airport, you can check the flight while they are in the air!

 

The feature that I think really cool is that for multi-leg flights, the answer allows you to hop through the legs. try search "united 840". Google does similar but not as thoughtful IMO.

 

 

If you are an iPhone 3G user, this is going to be a killer feature on the road.

 

This feature is only available for US, India, UK, Australia, and Canada. For my China friends, you can add "&mkt=en-us" at the end of the URL (or click here) to enjoy it.

 

Official Live Search blog post: http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/archive/2009/03/23/active-answers-give-you-flight-status.aspx 

Microsoft Live Search: http://www.live.com/