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

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

It is absolutely clear that airlines do not have the ability to drive consumers to channels Chicago which the airlines, hotel rather than consumers, prefer. If one or more airlines attempted to do so, the others would increase their market share by appealing to those same consumers through the channel those consumers prefer. No airline can afford to turn its back on any subgroup rooms of consumers. discounted No airline can afford Chicago to be anything other than as competitive and as attractive as it can possibly be through each channel hotel to the consumers that prefer rooms that channel. 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 profitable to money-losing in an instant. Airlines scrap for every last passenger because they have to.