Orbitz Takes Off, Hitting Some Turbulence

...But arguably no dot-com has been subject to as much scrutiny before its debut as Orbitz, the new online travel agency owned by five of the nation's biggest airlines.

Consumer groups have decried it as anticompetitive, a sentiment echoed (not surprisingly) by the company's rivals, most notably Expedia and Travelocity.

"I really believe Orbitz will become a platform for collusion," Mark Silbergeld, co-director of the Consumers Union's Washington office, said after Orbitz's first week of operation. "All the major competitors in an already highly concentrated industry now have a platform from which to agree how to market their tickets."

Orbitz executives respond that since all the fares are made public on the site, price collusion would be easily spotted. Furthermore, they say, the federal Department of Transportation reviewed such anticompetitive concerns before clearing Orbitz in early April. (An investigation by the Justice Department is ongoing.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/17/travel/17CYBER.html