Back before the internet existed, one of the preferred ways to buy an airline ticket was through a travel agent. With expert knowledge in airlines, schedules and the systems used for indexing and selling tickets, travel agents could help consumers comparison shop and find the right airfare, all for a small token fee.
With the advent of the internet, travel agents became Online Travel Agents (OTAs) and sites like Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity flourished. But with great access to data and bandwidth, the airlines realized that they could also index, market and sell their tickets without external help. And by selling their own tickets, they could encourage passengers to search and book solely on their websites without the risk of customers seeing competitive pricing from other carriers.
No airline has done this better than Southwest Airlines, the carrier that long-resisted sharing their pricing or scheduling data with any OTA like Orbitz or Expedia. Loyal Southwest passengers kept their shopping experience on Southwest.com and business went on as usual.
Other airlines, however, have not experienced the same success. Though they'd like to operate their own laser-focused fare booking portals, most airlines reluctantly release their fare and schedule data to OTAs because that's where most consumer traffic lands. They need that business. But they're not happy about being compared side by side with competitors -- especially those that heap on fees after the initial sale.
For that reason, legacy carriers have always explored new ways to present their airfares and get out of the traditional OTA relationships. The most recent kerfuffle as reported by the Wall St. Journal involves Delta Air Lines and a batch of OTAs including Tripadvisor and The Hipmunk. Citing improper use of the airline's data, this week Delta stopped providing fare and scheduling data to the travel agents, leaving a vacuum displayed in may of the routes that it serves. Passengers now looking for competitive fares on Delta routes will have to go to another OTA or directly to the airline's website, a huge inconvenience for those who have preferred fare searching habits.
With these changes, Delta has effectively taken a stand on how it wants its fares displayed and by whom. And though they're still giving access to some OTAs including Expedia and Priceline, many argue that by limiting access to their data, they're creating a non-competitive environment for consumers. If Delta gets its way and all fare searches eventually go towards bookings on airline websites, that may be true. But in the short term, the airline will suffer from fewer OTA bookings where customers don't see Delta fares. From here, the war of attrition begins.
