After six months of hearings and testimony, the National Commission
to Ensure Consumer Information and Choice in the Airline Industry
released its report this week recommending well, nothing.
Though the report concludes that the travel agent industry has
been severely impacted by the events of the last several years and
that since reaching a peak in 1994 the numbers have been reduced by
a third, consolidation and free market factors should continue
without any new legislation or regulation.
The Commission did not feel that the decline in the number of
agencies had an adverse effect on consumers because the Internet
gave them more access to travel information than they had
before.
David Winstead, chairman of the commission said that while
“thousands [of consumers] may have been inconvenienced by the loss
of individual agents, they still have ample sources of travel
information.”
He also said that while the commission was “seriously concerned
with the financial health of the travel agency industry, [we]
determined that new legislation or regulation would be ineffective
in reversing the trend toward industry consolidation.”
The commission concluded that travel agents provide an
independent source of travel information and that is important to
protect consumers, and that the Internet does not always produce
better results than traditional agents. The airlines’ refusal to
make Web fares available to agents is an impediment to efficient
operation of agencies, but the commission did not agree to support
mandating that the Web fares be made available to all travel
intermediaries.
