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Dukes Up
Kirby's Korner · October 6, 2000

If you haven't noticed yet, there's a political fight brewing, one that will greatly affect how all of us live in the coming years.

No, this isn't a column about the ongoing presidential race in the United States. The fight described in this column is about larger issues -- how and where each of us buy airline tickets next year and forever after.

The stakes are actually larger than the presidential contest. Michael Meehan, a reporter for Computerworld, said in a recent article that the $300 million the airline owners of online travel agency Orbitz have invested in Orbitz is three times more than it takes to get elected president.

Orbitz is at the center of the growing storm. I've written before about the hysterical reaction of the travel industry to the pending low-fare site, and about colleague Cheap Charlie's predictions about congressional action.

But other threads of the growing noose are coming together quickly.

For example: Consumer Reports Travel Letter just released a study indicating that online travel agencies bias choices presented to their buyers. (I'm simply shocked at this finding -- shocked, I tell you. Not because the bias exists, but because people who obviously don't read Ticked have taken so long to discover that it exists.)

For example: Orbitz said the U.S. Transportation Department should not extend fair-display rules to online travel agencies. The department now requires that huge computer systems used by travel agents throughout the industry not show favoritism among airlines in their displays. The American Society of Travel Agents disagrees with Orbitz, saying the fair-display rules should be applied to Internet travel sites.

For example: The Interactive Travel Services Association asked the Transportation Department to prohibit Orbitz from going forward with its online agency unless Orbitz's airline participants agree to make Orbitz's fares available throughout the industry.

For example: The president of the American Antitrust Institute called for government investigation not just of Orbitz but of many online travel opportunities for "anticompetitive practices." Other attorneys argue the government doesn't need to get involved.

For example: Transportation Department inspector general Kenneth Mead, who was somewhat critical of Orbitz at a summer Senate Commerce Committee hearing, now says he doesn't see anything in Orbitz's business plan that would establish collusion among the owner airlines. But he said failure to live up to the plan would cause "swift and meaningful action" by the government.

For example: The Aviation Consumer Action Project, a group started by Ralph Nader, says Web sites that have special relationships with airlines and other travel sellers should disclose those relationships to travel buyers.

My biases in favor of Orbitz have been presented before and appear to match those of the Transportation Department's Mead -- and of Ronald Reagan's approach to the old Soviet Union -- trust, but verify. Let Orbitz go forward, but watch it closely for airline collusion.

I also favor what Europeans call "transparency" -- the Aviation Consumer Action Project's call for full disclosure of special relationships.

But what I think is immaterial. What is important is what airline ticket buyers think.

To an extent, we've always been able to vote with our pocketbooks by choosing where and what to buy. But with the undercurrent of political activity now bubbling around the travel industry, travelers have never had a better opportunity to vote with our voices -- and our votes.

Let your political leaders know what is important to you. Let government regulators know. U.S. citizens should demand that those currently running for public office tell us how the candidates will help travelers once they're elected.

If you sit this one out, you only have yourself to blame the first time you buy an airline ticket next year.

David Kirby is the content manager at start-up company iJET.com and was the founding editor of Interactive Travel Report. His column appears on Friday. You can reach him at david@ticked.com.