Airlines May Show You the Competition’s Fares Before You Book

Flights Computer Key Shows Overseas Vacation Or Holiday Booking (Photo: iStock)

In a move to encourage direct bookings rather than ceding comparison shoppers to sites like Travelocity, Kayak or Priceline, airlines are starting to experiment with the idea of making competing airfares available on their own webpages.

Frugal air travelers have come to rely on third-party booking sites to quickly and easily compare rates for a given itinerary, but in most cases, the airlines would prefer to cut out the middle man and offer those fares directly to the consumer. Southwest Airlines has made a point of repeatedly informing passengers loudly and often that the “Official Southwest Airlines website is the only place to find Southwest Airlines fares online.”

Now, it appears other carriers are taking the opposite approach to enticing consumers to book airfare directly from the airline. According to a report this week from Skift, both Iceland Air and El Al have tested new online tools to allow passengers to see similar fares from competing airlines before pulling the trigger on select bookings. The price comparison option is said to be in the early stages of testing, but some customers are already seeing competing fares listed side-by-side with bookings offered on the airlines’ websites.

The price comparison technology known as “Right Flight” is pioneered by Travelaer, a French technology firm which develops internet booking engines for the travel industry. Right flight has a few distinct differences from third party sites which often display hundreds of competing fares from dozens of competing airlines and allow passengers to purchase any of those bookings with just a few clicks of a touchpad. So far, the airlines plan to only display a handful of competing fares on their websites and will only allow customers to book the airline’s own fares directly.

According to the company, Right Flight will also do a few things that other third-party sites don’t yet offer. The price comparison tool will also compare legroom, amenities and travel time along with the final price. The comparison tool is designed to help travelers easily compare apples and oranges with a currency conversion feature to quickly show the lowest fare available in virtually any currency.

A legal grey area could at least partially stymie the promising pilot program before it ever gets off the ground, however. US airlines have long insisted they have the sole right to decide where their published fares are reprinted. Legal challenges to these claims have yielded mixed results, but objections from rival airlines could easily stop the prospect of comparison shopping without using a third-party booking site from becoming the norm.

[Photo: Shutterstock]