I can't prove it was that way, but I spent a lot of time in the space. For a long time, the airline's site used to be the top organic result, and there was no widget. Similar for other travel related searches (not just airlines) over time. Google has been pushing down organic results in favor of ads and widgets for a long time...and slowly, one little thing at a time. Like no widgets -> small widget below first organic result -> move the widget up -> make it bigger -> etc.