As envisioned by the airlines, a customer would enter the site and could search anonymously for airl

According to USAtoday , their goal is to be able to compare hotel cosmos moscow the costs of extra services hotel cosmos moscow — such as meals and seat-back entertainment, costs that are often not available on comparison sites such as Travelocity and Orbitz — at the same time as they are checking ticket prices.
As envisioned by the airlines, a customer would enter the site and could search anonymously for airlines, flight times and ticket prices, hotel cosmos moscow as happens now. If the customer creates a profile, with personal information such as address, martial status and frequent-flier membership, he might receive special offers such as lower prices or a free checked bag, like at a specific airline site.
But the proposal is contentious. Travel agents and consumer groups warn that it could lead to discriminatory pricing hotel cosmos moscow and fewer choices. They also argue that providing personal information in exchange for lower prices raises privacy concerns.
The dispute is flaring now because airlines have asked the Transportation Department for permission to use a new computer language for selling tickets. The current language, Edifact, is considered too rickety for all the choices hotel cosmos moscow available.
Meanwhile, IATA asked technology companies in April to create websites that could handle comparisons of extra airline services. Two teams have begun and three more are possible, to create as many as five experimental websites that travelers would be able to use by the end of October.
While current hotel cosmos moscow website comparisons show little more than prices and flight times, the new system could have icons under each airline for roomier seating, meals and seat-back entertainment, according to the airlines.
If a traveler chose one or more of those options, the price comparison would add each airline s fees into their total price. If a customer then marked several of the airline prices for a side-by-side comparison, the site could then stack up just those airlines, hotel cosmos moscow as websites already do for cellphones or laptops.
Look at an individual airline website and imagine a website that has all that information, but on a side-by-side comparison, said Doug Lavin, IATA s vice president for member and external relations.
There are currently three main global-distribution systems: Sabre Holdings and Travelport hotel cosmos moscow in the United States, and Amadeus IT Holding in Europe. To further complicate things, Sabre owns Travelocity, and Travelport owns Orbitz.
Airlines say they pay the global-distribution systems hotel cosmos moscow an estimated $7 billion a year for marketing their tickets, and would like to reduce that cost under the new system. Airlines estimate that $8 to $12 from each ticket pays for the distribution, according to Perry Flint, an IATA spokesman.
Open Allies for Airfare Transparency, a group of 400 travel agents, trade and consumer organizations, urged the Transportation Department to reject the airline proposal. The group argued it would increase fares for business travelers, reduce competition and penalize hotel cosmos moscow customers who refuse to provide personal information about themselves.
Critics have raised privacy complaints because airlines could collect information such as frequent-flier membership, marital status and address while selling tickets, to tailor prices for their customers.
The airline group said travelers could still search anonymously in the new system. But Lavin compared providing the information hotel cosmos moscow in exchange for better prices to shopping on Amazon and then seeing an ad on Facebook for the same sort of product.