For a guy in the press, I'm not as cynical as you might think.
I want to believe what I hear, and it takes some doing to raise
my suspicions. But I'm having a lot of trouble believing what was
said at the recent preview of the multi-airline Web site now called
Orbitz.
Here's a new Web enterprise owned by no less than United, Delta,
American, Northwest and Continental, and here's its chief
technology officer, Alex Zoghlin, telling us that it will offer
"unbiased" service and will combat the on-line "cartel" controlled
by Travelocity and Expedia.
This is an airline site we're talking about that's going to give
us unbiased service. He says the people who think the site is
anticompetitive because its owners are responsible for most of the
airline business done in this part of the world are misguided.
The site, says Zoghlin, is nothing more than a "small Internet
start-up," an on-line travel agency that will generate revenue by
earning commissions just like any other agency. Besides, he says by
way of reassurance, his own mother is a travel agent.
Let me see if I have this straight. A Web site owned by the five
largest U.S. carriers is just a small Internet start-up that will
offer unbiased service. I'm trying to buy this, honestly I am.
I'm trying to buy the contention that Orbitz' software will find
lower fares than anyone else can locate. Zoghlin did a little
demonstration to that effect and the software found New
York-Chicago fares that were lower than those on Travelocity or
Expedia. I'm trying to believe the demonstration was a random
selection of city pairs and times of the day or week.
I'm trying to buy Zoghlin's insistence that the airline owners
will allow the site to operate at arm's length even though their
representatives sit on the board. I'm sure it's true, as the news
story said, that Zoghlin will merely "report to them on occasion as
to what is going on."
That's the way it usually works in profit-making ventures: the
salaried employes occasionally let the owners know what's going
on.
Well, Mr. Zoghlin, you've sold me. I believe you.
I believe that the site will be unbiased, just a little old
country Internet start-up living off commissions like any other
travel agency.
I believe that you have located the software that will find the
lowest fares.
And I want to wish you all the good fortune in the world.
I hope you and your airline owners will have the same good
fortune that other travel agencies have, the good fortune to
continually find the lowest fares and the opportunity to try to
make a profit on the commissions from those lowest fares.