I have been looking at who is doing a good job in providing consumer information on fees and ancillaries charges.
Given the industry and consumer advocacy focus on this – I really wanted to see who does a good job.
So, I went to some of the top online travel agency sites, GDSs and the search/metasearch sites who can provide data and then this table is the results.
Global Distribution Systems
| Company | Fee calculator |
|---|---|
| Amadeus | Nothing at present |
| Sabre | 64 airlines split into domestic and international - basic 4 columns and a counter to compare (*1) |
| Worldspan | Nothing at present |
| Galileo | Nothing at present |
Search/metasearch engines
| Site | Fee calculator |
|---|---|
| Bing Travel | Nothing at present |
| Farecompare | a good comprehensive chart for 16 airlines available in USA (*2) |
| Kayak | 27 airlines with more detail (*3) |
| Mobissimo | Nothing at present |
| Skyscanner | Nothing at present |
Online travel agencies
| Site | Fee calculator |
|---|---|
| Cleartrip | nothing at present |
| eDreams | nothing at present |
| Expedia | nothing at present (adding tools to Egencia) |
| Opodo | nothing at present |
| Priceline | nothing at present |
| Travelocity | nothing at present (adding tools to Travelocity Business) |
| Travelstart | nothing at present |
| Wotif/Wotflights | nothing at present |
| Zuji | nothing at present |
Notes:
Frankly, I am surprised – I would have thought that by now consumer advocacy would have driven sites to do a better job.
So either the sites are lazy or they are fatalistic about doing the job.
It has been a long while since I did an overview of consumer support – but I am actually surprised at how little there is out there to help users.
In almost all cases – it was hard to find the information on each site.
So I could actually have missed if the individual site does have the information. In that case I will apologize for not finding it but then chastise the site for not making it intuitive and easier.
If there is a lesson here – it is that if you are consumer facing you should have an easy way to simplify the way airline information is presented. It will also help to build trust in the mind of the consumer.
That has to be a good thing – so why aren’t you doing it?








