e are happy for Hobbit Travel that
Sabre agreed to pay the $20,000 fine that was assessed on the
agency recently by the Transportation Department's enforcement
office. Hobbit, in case you missed it, was the Minneapolis travel
agency that found itself in violation of the DOT's advertising
rules because its Web site, powered by Sabre, wasn't displaying air
fares with all taxes included until the user clicked through to the
booking page.
So, we salute Sabre for stepping up to the plate on this one --
but before we close the book on this case, we have a question for
our federal regulators at the DOT: Why was there a case at all?
Why does the federal government slap one travel agency with a
$20,000 fine for using an Internet fare-display technology provided
by an industry leader like Sabre? If there was a problem with the
way Hobbit's Web site was displaying fares, then the DOT could have
gone to the source, consulted with Sabre, and resolved the problem
for all users of the software. Instead, it pounced on one user.
If the federal government is going to prowl around looking for
unscrupulous travel sellers, we would be the first to applaud if it
came down hard on the perpetrators of fraud, the scam artists and
shoddy operators who abscond with people's money.
But that's not what we had here. The DOT's only beef is that the
Web site displayed the full fare with all taxes "only after a
consumer had selected from among a list of alternative itineraries,
specifying the carrier and flight number." The DOT claims,
"Internet fare displays such as these are deceptive and misleading
to consumers."
Well, that's debatable. How deceptive can it be when thousands
of e-commerce sites on the Web require the user to click through
before seeing all the taxes and delivery charges?
The DOT does not allege that any consumers were misled or
defrauded by Hobbit's Web site. It just makes the categorical claim
that such an approach to displaying fares is illegal.
The DOT also proudly claims that in the use of its enforcement
powers, it "has made every effort to accommodate the emergence of
the Internet in the sale of air transportation."
We're not so sure the DOT has a whole lot to be proud of with
this caper.
• • •
Wild pitch?
he French National Tourist
Office chose "Let's Fall In Love Again" as the theme for a campaign
to get the attention of U.S. tourists. Good choice.
The campaign includes video testimonials from Americans who like
France, including a New York firefighter and jazz great Wynton
Marsalis. Good choices.
But Woody Allen? We're not prudes around here, but we're
guessing that in vast tracts of the American heartland, a
commercial where Woody Allen makes a joke about French kissing his
wife is not going to sell much of anything.