Delta playing hardball with online travel sites
A group of major online travel sites is accusing Delta Air Lines of shutting them out, by removing its data as it looks to wrest control from OTAs and meta search sites.
Delta has removed its flight schedule and fares from several travel sites, including TripAdvisor, Hipmunk and CheapOair, the Wall St Journal reports.
Delta says it never authorized the use of the data to these sites.
The airline said it "reserves the right to determine who it does business with, and where and how its information is displayed."
It vowed to "continue partnering with a limited, but responsive and adaptable group of online retailers."
It follows a report by trade group the Travel Technology Association, which represents some of the biggest players in online travel.
Economics professor Fiona Scott Morton, who authored the report for the TTA, says airlines are trying hard to prevent the ability to compare fares online in order to bag more direct customers and upsell added services from their own websites.
"The motivation behind the change isn’t that ‘I want low-cost distribution,’ it is that ‘I want to restrict the ability of the consumer to do price comparisons,’ " said Morton.
"We probably need a rule that says everybody can look at all the fares in an efficient way."
Morton suggests in the report that without the option to compare the biggest carriers’ fares together, customers will pay an average 11% more or a combined $6.7 billion extra in airfares a year.
The trade group also notes American Airlines and United Airlines have also limited where and how data can be seen.
"Delta has been the most egregious, but this is about the large carriers leveraging their market dominance to restrict and selectively choose the winners and losers—and the losers are the American public," said Bryan Saltzburg, head of flight search at TripAdvisor.
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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