When airlines stop hiding the price of so many essential components of the travel experience, most n

In an opinion editorial published in Aviation Daily, Joseph Rubin, President of the Interactive Travel Services Association (an Open Allies member) responds to several inaccurate alaska airlines home page and misleading claims made about GDSs:
IATA's Douglas Lavin has treated readers of Aviation Daily to an audacious exercise alaska airlines home page in sophistry.  "Imagine if the federal government published a regulation to require Apple to sell its entire product line through third party retailers," he writes ("It's Not Really About the Passenger," Departures, July 18).
Let's put aside for the moment the fact that nobody has ever asked DOT to impose such a rule on airlines.  I'll come back to that straw man.  First, compare the difference between how Apple sells through third-party retailers with how most airlines do so. Consumers who purchase Apple products through third-party vendors have complete access alaska airlines home page to all of the information needed to make informed decisions, including readily accessible information about options and prices.  Most important, they can make the entire purchase right there.  If a consumer buys an iPad from Amazon, she won't later discover that she has to also navigate to Apple's own website to buy a $35 charger.
If only airline customers could enjoy even a semblance of that experience. alaska airlines home page In stark contrast to the online shopping for just about anything else, airlines who choose third-party vendors to market their services typically prohibit those retailers from displaying and selling basic elements of the travel experience that many travelers want – seat selection, checked baggage, and advance boarding, for example.  It is impossible, therefore, alaska airlines home page for airline customers to comparison shop with the ease and efficiency that we have come to expect alaska airlines home page from online retailing.
GDSs have never asked the government to require airlines to sell their products and services through third parties. Like Apple, airlines have the right to choose their own retail channels.  However, when they use a third-party vendor, they should enable those vendors to display and sell the entire product – not just part of it.  The airlines' unwillingness to let GDSs facilitate the display and sale of ancillary services means that consumers have no efficient means of comparing the all-in price of one airline's product against another.
Mr. Lavin fallaciously claims that GDSs are a "duopoly" that wants the government to protect them from competition. The truth is that the marketplace for airline distribution services is diverse and competitive, and includes alaska airlines home page GDSs, airline websites, call centers and airport locations, along with other non-GDS distribution channels.  Indeed, the share of tickets sold by GDSs and the fees they charge airlines have both fallen significantly since GDS deregulation in 2004 due in part to the emergence of direct airline booking systems. This is the textbook definition of competitive marketplace.
alaska airlines home page Mr. Lavin also implies that the marketplace is working, and says that travel agents are "adapting" to the world of hidden ancillary fees. That's a polite way of saying that agents alaska airlines home page are purchasing ancillary services through airline websites because they have no other choice than to undertake this a time-consuming, costly, and frustrating process, all in the name of satisfying their customers. alaska airlines home page The PCW study from which Mr. Lavin cherry-picks notably goes on to point out that even professional alaska airlines home page travel agents continue to be confused by ancillary services and fees, and would greatly alaska airlines home page prefer to access them through GDSs if only the airlines would make that possible.  Another conclusion from that study: "The DOT has the responsibility to act on the behalf alaska airlines home page of the public . . . It will be difficult to convince today's savvy shoppers that being unable to shop on a neutral platform with full disclosures of fares, fees, taxes and ancillaries is in their best interest."
When airlines stop hiding the price of so many essential components of the travel experience, most notably ancillary services and fees, individual consumers and corporate travel departments will once again derive full benefits from an open and efficient air travel alaska airlines home page marketplace. And airlines will discover what Apple already knows: true transparency promotes competition, innovation, efficiency, customer satisfaction and market growth. These are outcomes that would benefit all commercial aviation stakeholders.