What else is going on in the world of travel tech? A round-up of other stories from across the industry.
- The common stock of AMR Corp., the parent company of American Airlines, will be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange prior to January 5, NYSE Regulation announced. Trading under the stock symbol AMR, the stock closed January 3 at $0.29 per share. To remain listed, AMR would have had to trade at $1 per share or higher for the previous 30 days. AMR is in the midst of a Chapter 11 reorganization and it apparently won’t be using its stock as a viable fundraising method.
- The American Society of Travel Agents released its annual Technology and Web Usage Report and the most dramatic change in 2011 was the finding that 65% of travel agents provide their clients with mobile access to their itineraries, up from 20% in 2010. In the travel agency owner and manager survey, sponsored by Sabre, 39% of agencies indicated they use CRM (customer relationship management) software, and the chief technology issues cited was “keeping up with technology changes and justifying the return on technology investment,” ASTA says.
- ARC, the US-based airline-owned settlement organization, named Bonnie Reitz as chairman (or chairperson) of the board. Reitz, who was Continental Airlines’ senior vice president of marketing, sales and distribution during its turnaround years under Gordon Bethune, replaces David Landuyt as ARC chairman. Landuyt gets the honorary title, chairman emeritus.
- Cheapflights has had a complaint against it over the availability of flights at particular prices from London to Colombia upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority. While the ASA acknowledged wording on the website that “prices were subject to availability” and “check with the advertiser at the time of booking”, it also noted that the complainant said he was willing to travel on any dates to avail of the fares. Â The authority also ruled the wording was insufficient in terms of making clear that flights at the stated prices might be “extremely limited”.
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About Tnooz
4th Jan 2012
Cheapflights would like to make a statement with regards a Notification we received from the ASA on 30th November 2011 concerning a single complaint concerning availability of prices for advertisements by Travel Up Ltd t/a Bargain Flight Desk; Polani Travel Ltd t/a ComeFli; Sea Breeze Holidays t/a FlightHouseUK.com for flights prices to Bogota and Cali on 21st and 22nd September 2011. This has resulted in a complaint by a member of the public to the ASA being upheld on 4th January
Statement points:
• The prices under scrutiny were obtained by the advertisers under Air Line Contracts which supply “date Range” fares which are open for a specific period subject to availability on dates within that date range. Text above the listed ads stated “Prices updated DAILY and are subject to availability. Check with the advertiser at the time of booking”.
• Cheapflights Media has been a consumer flight price “champion” since 1996 and has always co-operated closely with both the ASA and the OFT to improve the online advertising environment for consumers.
• Our UK site gets up to 3 million visits a month and we regret that this incident has occurred particularly since the wording used about availability on deals at the time of the complaint had previously been implemented following correspondence with the ASA earlier last year .
• As a result of this complaint we have again been consulting with the ASA and have taken appropriate action to improve messaging about the prices published by our advertisers on our site. We have also reminded our advertisers about the need to ensure that their deal prices and availability are accurate and updated regularly and that their own sites’ wording meets ASA standards.
• The quality of our deals is very important to us and we believe we have genuinely cheap deals. We are always looking for ways to improve our service and make the hard to find deals easier to locate. Unfortunately it is the nature of our industry that the best flight deals can be very limited in availability and in some cases sell out.
• It was unfortunate that the consumer did not contact us directly for help, as by the time we heard of this through the ASA it was not possible to investigate properly or help the consumer. We welcome feedback on the accuracy of our deals and work swiftly to give feedback. We have a three strikes and off-the-site policy for any advertisers who display inaccurate fares.