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

Then the allegation that we are "an illegal boycott against reservations 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 for making it. Orlando and discount Our agreements contain no boycott against hotel any distributors whatsoever, and in fact affirmatively provide that no airline is precluded from utilizing any other distribution channel or offering any fare through any channel. reservations The Department of Justice is presently reviewing all agreements, Orlando so there will be no question on this point. Do airlines today make all their fares available through all retail channels?

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