We are calling upon your agencies to immediately investigate whether this action violates federal antitrust or aviation laws. Last year Northwest spearheaded a highly controversial initiative with its four largest competitors to establish a joint Internet travel agency known as Orbitz with what may be exclusive access to many of the lowest fares and best seats offered by those carriers. Those investigations are still pending. A major question has been whether Orbitz was ever intended to make money as a stand-alone business or was simply a device for its owners to collectively cut their costs by eliminating competition from other travel agencies. Significantly, Orbitz s primary source of income is commissions.
Online agencies are among the cheapest of distribution channels for major airlines.
Northwest already has a virtual monopoly at its fortress hubs in Minneapolis-St. Paul and Detroit, and we firmly believe that the potential weakening of Internet agencies will result in only higher prices to Northwest s captive customers. Equally disturbing is that Northwest s conduct comes on the heels of a well-orchestrated signaling campaign preceding this announcement that was evidently designed to solicit support among airlines for an elimination of online commissions. That same article quotes the CEO of yet a third major airline bemoaning the purported high cost of travel agency distribution in a speech given before the Wings Club. A few weeks earlier, the former CEO of a major airline announced at an industry conference, One way or another, airlines will control Internet distribution.