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Why I Like Orbitz
Cheap Charlie · September 4, 2000

In the travel industry, the big news has been the political battle between the Travelocity/Expedias of the world and the new "airline" site named Orbitz. The focus has been on whether airline ownership and favoritism will skew competition away from the Sabre-based systems towards Orbitz.

That is a real problem. The airlines have been known to be voracious in their drive to virtually eliminate commissions on ticket sales. "Cut the costs of distribution" has been an airline mantra for the past half decade. There is no reason to think they will relent.

Orbitz is another attempt to cut the already depressed levels of commissions to even lower levels. If consumers were getting lower fares because of these cost cuts, it would be another story, however, it seems only airline executives are reaping the benefits.

If anyone takes the time to go to ITA Software, the engine of the new Orbitz system, they will be amazed at how well it works. It is an amazing piece of software. In fact, airline spokespersons have been relentless in their employers' desire to share this new software with the public.

It seems, after listening to Congressional testimony on C-Span, that the only reason for Orbitz to be approved, is the pending provision of this wonderful software to the world's travelers.

I agree that the software is wonderful. It is the future - if it isn't hobbled by the airlines.

The power of ITA Software is its ability to look beyond the benevolent "best routing" underpinnings of Sabre, other CRSs and indeed the airlines' own systems. When users log onto virtually any site run on Sabre/old technology platforms, they receive what the computer considers the best routing.

The reservation information is delivered in bits and pieces. Anyone who has used the booking engines of Travelocity, Expedia, Trip, BizTravel and so on, has been through the price-blind selection dance that must be performed before other "better fares" pop up on the screen.

These old technology CRS systems may have been fine for travel agents, but they don't tell the whole story for today's computer-savvy travelers.

Apologists for the current booking systems claim that passengers don't want too much information and that current systems limit flight combinations to make everything easier to understand.

Please.

I certainly don't want some executive letting me know what I need and want to see under the guise of "helping" me.

At the new Orbitz booking engine, virtually all flight combinations are clearly stated and listed initially by price. These selections can then be displayed airline by airline.

The system allows seamless price comparisons from smaller, nearby airports.

The ITA Software search system also provides unusual two-stop routings that in some cases don't even show up on the airlines' 800-number systems. But they work. And after going through the ITA itineraries step-by-step, even the reservation personnel are amazed at the better fares that "magically" appear - that otherwise wouldn't show up on their screens.

The ITA "magic" is the simple presentation of all available options for airline routing. ITA puts the passengers in charge. It allows passengers to make informed decisions, rather than subjecting the traveling public to benevolent and benign CRS-created "best routings."

When this newer technology is linked with more open information including airline last-minute Internet fares, it will be even more open and will be the place to book travel.

There is one massive caveat - will the airlines allow the openness to continue?

One major disservice to the flying public will allowing the airlines to control how this technology works and to what flights will be allowed to be displayed. Another will be limiting the ITA fare search capabilities to only Orbitz. Anyone who really understands the reservation and flight scheduling systems will bypass old technology flight search engines for this new system.

Arguing whether this fare or that fare should be displayed on this system or that system; and whether the airlines are being fair about providing Internet-only fares to distributors such as Travelocity and Expedia is not the point, nor the real crux of the debate.

Allowing the airlines to control this new technology, which for a short time has opened a window into price and schedules that airline have long made difficult to find, should be the real focus.

Charlie Leocha is the Boston-based author of Travel Rights: Know the Rules of the Road and the Air Before You Go. Cheap Charlie appears every Monday on this site. E-mail him at cheapch@aol.com or access his Web site.