Editor's note: This article differs from the version that was published in the May 6 print issue. It was corrected to indicate that Amadeus does not oppose Resolution 787.
ASTA and several other key industry players are opposing IATA’s Resolution 787, an attempt to establish an XML standard for airline distribution.
In fact, comments to the Transportation Department (DOT) on Resolution 787 revealed a deep split within the industry, with the airlines solidly united in their support of IATA and the retail travel chain all but unanimous in its opposition.
Many key opponents waited until the DOT’s deadline last Wednesday to file.
The retail channel’s opposition largely stems from a shared assessment that the proposed standard appears designed to raise airfares and is an “unprecedented” effort among competing airlines to create a new business model for pricing and selling airline tickets.
Most opponents said they support the development of standards but such standards need to be developed colloboratively, not unilaterally, so that all stakeholders benefit.
ASTA also criticized the way IATA created its New Distribution Capability (NDC), an XML standard that is at the core of Resolution 787. ASTA said development of NDC has been a “non-collaborative process” created in IATA’s “inner chamber” and led by “marketing executives from 11 airlines.”
IATA has operated “mostly out of radar range,” ASTA wrote in its filing, asserting that a truly collaborative process would have, from the beginning, involved associations like ASTA that represent major stakeholders.
ASTA’s filing referred to another argument against Resolution 787 filed by the Open Allies for Airfare Transparency, which told the DOT that the resolution would increase airfares, reduce competition, invade consumer privacy and penalize consumers.
The ASTA filing championed agents, saying that the DOT should be skeptical of anyone who portrays travel agencies as being unwilling to change, tethered to GDSs and opposed to innovation.
ASTA argued that contrary to popular myth, most agencies do not depend on incentive payments from GDSs and are not wedded to any one way of doing business. It said travel agencies use a variety of business models, have survived because of their ability to keep pace with new technologies and are attracted to innovations that make them more efficient in serving their clients.
ASTA said that IATA is planning massive changes in air travel distribution that will affect every retail and wholesale seller of travel as well as millions of air travel consumers. It called Resolution 787 an “unprecedented intrusion in the market by the global airline industry acting as a single firm.”
Open Allies told the DOT that it was troubled by IATA’s proposal to not just collect personal data from passengers, including age, marital status and nationality, but by the fact that it would “broadcast” this information to all IATA carriers, even if the consumer was just flying one airline. Open Allies said that consumers who do not provide this information might be penalized with exorbitant “rack rates.”
Open Allies also claimed that NDC would mark IATA’s entry into the fare distribution sector, making it the first time that airlines have acted as horizontal competitors through IATA to distribute fares.
GDSs, which supply airfares to many agencies, both traditional and online, also said that they were either opposed to Resolution 787 or expressed concerns about it.
Amadeus, which said that it supports the objectives of NDC, said that IATA is proposing to “impose a model and an architecture which go far beyond pure technical standards and which will substantially change the current distribution system.” In making that claim, Amadeus cited supporting documents that IATA had filed with the DOT.
Amadeus said it supports standards as long as they are not “mandatory either in development or adoption.” Non-airline stakeholders who came out in opposition to Resolution 787 also said that support the concept of standards.
The GDS said in its filing with the DOT that IATA should change the resolution to be “entirely nonbinding and voluntary” and argued that references discouraging backwards compatibility should be removed.
Backwards compatibility refers to NDC being able to work with other standards in order to enable comparison shopping and content comparison. Amadeus also said that references to content ownership should be removed and that privacy issues should be clarified.
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