This week a number of European travel industry bodies, including the UK's GTMC, the GBTA, the European Passengers Association and ETTSA (the European Technology and Travel Services Association) among others, emailed an open letter to Violeta Bulc, the European Commissioner of Transport. In it they object to "the predictable efforts made by large air carriers to indeed limit transparency in airline distribution, illustrated by the Lufthansa Group carriers' distribution strategy introduced two years ago."
Industry organisations exist to promote the interests and maximise the prosperity of their members so their aim must be to improve and safeguard their members' position. That is not the same as claiming that regulations are being flaunted. The letter continues:
"Unfortunately these practices have met no response from the European Commission so far and, as expected, that has encouraged other large carriers to follow the example of the Lufthansa Group. The signatories to this letter have for two years warned against this dangerous development, but it has now happened in the form of a new distribution strategy announced a few days ago by IAG.
"We urge you to enforce the EU legislation designed to protect transparency, competition and consumer choice, and to take action against the Lufthansa Group's practices, thereby demonstrating the European Commission's determination to continuously defend the principles of the Single Market and the values of the European Union."
The letter is liberally sprinkled with the logos of organisations who appear to share the basic premise that distribution by a means other than the GDS distorts the market, limits consumer choice and impedes transparency. One of the main signatories is ETTSA which "represent[s] and promote[s] the interests of global distribution systems".
Transparency and consumer interest also seem wide of the mark. One of the main benefits of airlines' own websites in comparison with GDSs is that ancillary products — and their charges — are included. This is possible via an NDC-enabled GDS with carriers who are NDC-certified but these are only a small percentage of the total number of IATA members.
One also wants to ask why the low-cost carriers, who have never used the GDS, and some of whom now rank among Europe's largest, viz Ryanair and easyJet, have escaped the opprobrium being heaped on Lufthansa and British Airways.
Is the GDS the only means of distribution in the consumer interest? After all, the GDS is a trade tool which an individual consumer cannot access. Any consumer can access a carrier's site. Transparency is supposed to allow comparison shopping on a single screen. Different carriers flying to the same destinations can be displayed on the same GDS screen but as different carriers' different classes of fares include different benefits, that the comparability is limited anyway.
The cynical among us would like to say that the root of the problem has more to do with business models and revenues than anything it has with to do with consumer protection, transparency or comparability.