Most airlines today choose to make web fares available only on their own websites, because these fares are so low it would be uneconomic albuquerque to offer them through the higher cost channels. hotel (It is, in fact, very common throughout airport and albuquerque the retailing world for stores or catalogs to also have a website, and for that website to offer a few prices that are below the prices charged for the same goods in the store or the catalog.) hotel and airport However whether an airline chooses to make its web fares available through CRS''s to travel agents and the websites that rely on CRS''s is strictly an individual albuquerque airline decision, and will remain so once Orbitz is up and running. Several third party websites (such hotel as intellitrip.com) today take web fares from various airline websites (which they can do, because nothing airport is more public than a website) and display them in one place for their customers. And of course albuquerque travel agents can book web fares hotel off an airline''s website for a customer if they wish (although whether they get a commission on that booking is up to the individual airline).

Our agreements not only contain no provision barring any airline from making any fare available through any channel, they contain an affirmative non-exclusivity provision that makes it explicit that no airline is prevented from making any fare it chooses airport available through any channel it chooses. Our agreement contains a non-discrimination clause by which those airlines that will receive the indirect discount on the CRS booking fee agree in return to make available on any fare they publish and make available to the general public through any other channel. But that of course does not preclude them from albuquerque offering any fare through any other channel.

Serious hotel mischaracterizations have been made about us and the issue of who will have access to what fares. Some of those mischaracterizations have been based on simple airport ignorance, albuquerque but others have clearly been part of a concerted effort by us competitors to use misinformation to prevent us from offering hotel new competition to them and new choice to consumers. There is no agreement by which any airline would be precluded from making any fare it chose available through any airport retail channel it chose. Airlines for 2 decades albuquerque have been like any other business in America, in that they can decide what they want to charge and where they want to sell their product. And that remains true under the our agreements. Each hotel and every airline, no matter what kind of participation it has, will be free to decide individually what fares it offers and whether or not airport to offer them through any other outlet.