Sunday, May 21, 2006 4:14 PM
by
TripStalkerAdmin
Reduced Capacity, Exclusive Booking Agreements & Full Flights = even more reasons to stalk your trip!
The New York Time's recent article, "Rough Summer Is on the Way for Air Travel", opens with:
Brace yourself for a summer of miserable air travel.
Planes are expected to be packed fuller than at anytime since World War II, when the airlines helped transport troops. Fares are rising. Service frills are disappearing.
In the Business Week article from December, "The Airlines' $5 Billion Showdown", it states:
Sabre's October deal with AirTran Holdings (AAI). Sabre cut GDS fees, and AirTran gave Travelocity discounted package tickets -- and stopped selling through Worldspan. Under this agreement, Sabre actually makes more from AirTran than before, both companies say, though a source near the talks says AirTran pays Sabre just $5.50 per round-trip. "It's because of increased volume and the limited participation of other GDS [companies]," AirTran VP Kevin Healy says.
What does this mean for the travel consumer? Two things, first not all travel sites will be accessing the same data. Sites that use the Sabre GDS will get different data than sites that use the Worldspan GDS. Now throw web fares into the mix (fares available exclusively on airline web sites). Not to mention consolidator and bucket buy shops. This quagmire of a distribution system for air fare leaves the consumer wondering how he/she can ensure the best price for their travel needs.
Well, it's a good thing there is TripStalker! In response to the continued fragmentation of the industry we are working round the clock on perfecting our scraping engine to bring you even more data sources for your stalks.
In the coming months look for drastic improvements in the stalking capability and the reporting service detailing exactly where the fare was found. This will give you, the consumer, a near real-time breakdown of the exact price that is available from multiple sources across the Internet. As we do now, the TripStalker agent will continue to check, re-check, and check again on the price keeping you constantly informed with fare alerts to notify you the moment your stalk drops below your notify price.
As the market evolves we see TripStalker as becoming an even greater value to the average travel consumer. So take comfort when sitting on that packed flight this summer and looking at the passengers around you that you were the winner who paid the least money for the exact same seat!