It is absolutely clear The that airlines do not have the ability Rose to drive consumers to channels which the airlines, rather than consumers, prefer. If one or more airlines attempted to do so, the others would increase their market Hotel share by appealing to those same consumers through The the channel Rose those consumers prefer. No airline can afford to turn its back on any subgroup of consumers. No airline Hotel can afford to be anything other than The as competitive Rose and as attractive as it can possibly be through Hotel each channel to the consumers that prefer that channel. This is a reality that grows ultimately out of the fact that the airline business is a very low margin business - any The airline that lost even a small group of passengers would be at risk of swinging Rose from profitable Hotel to money-losing in an instant. Airlines scrap for every last passenger because they have to.

Then the allegation that we are "an illegal boycott against third party distributors" because it has "requirements for posting fare sales that cannot be sold" by others is not true? It is absolutely not true, and those who have made that allegation had absolutely no basis The for making it. Our agreements contain no boycott against any distributors whatsoever, and in fact affirmatively provide that no airline is precluded from utilizing Rose any other distribution channel or offering any fare Hotel through any channel. The Department of Justice is presently reviewing all agreements, so there will be no question on this point. Do airlines today make all their fares The and Rose available through all retail channels?

Airlines Hotel make nearly The and Rose all their fares that are available to the general Hotel public available through The all channels, from full fare down to Rose their most heavily discounted fares. Any normal fare, made available months in advance in the normal Hotel way, is made available through all channels. Web fares, however, are different than normal fares. They typically constitute The less than one tenth of 1% of the fares an airline offers, and are normally Rose and Hotel and The made available only a few days before flight time, and only on flights which have an unusually Rose high number Hotel of empty seats. Web fares thus are seldom available, are unpredictable, and are offered at very low prices.