Re: Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia etc.
I am guessing this is not a coincidence.
It’s evident they’re all using the same bucket of tickets, since the flight selection is exactly the same from website to website.
What’s the story here?
Yup, they’re all tied into a loose confederation of a consolidated reservation system. I just finished a class on this and am discussing some of it in the code-share thread.
That’s the whole point of the system, though–all of the airlines have to publish a schedule of their flights, which are then combined into one master list (I have to go track down my textbook to get names/details for you). It all came out of regulation, when routes were rigidly structured and the airlines were required to publish their schedules.
Well, thanks to Al Gore and the Interwebs, they’ve compiled those lists into one database, which most of the Kayaks and Orbitz-es and Pricelines pull from.
The pricing of those tickets and how the fares move around closer to the departure date–that’s a whole other thread right there.
Tripler
Man, I’m juggling two threads in one night.
Tripler already nailed this by and large, but simply because I think this is a great way to search for airfares, I want to plug www.itasoftware.com. They aren’t a consumer oriented site, but as you can see, they specialize in developing and running a software product called QPX that essentially does what Tripler has described; search for airfares, sort, and display them, a deceivingly simple task that requires a great deal of specialization. You can note that a large number of consumer oriented traffic websites use the QPX engine on the back-end.
In theory, although I’ve never researched it and just been told, the way to deals on the various online sites are via package deals. The airlines are pretty straightforward but those sites will negotiate deals with hotels and car rentals and tours and so on.
How the online sites juggle the finances on who owes what to whom I have no clue but you may be able to find deals there…just not for airline tickets alone.
As an aside I read once (sorry no cite…long ago and a quick Google fails me) that the internet actually allows airlines to charge more overall. The initial assumption was that consumers, with more information in price shopping, would push prices down. However, the airlines learned that the internet gives them near instant feedback on price changes. Before they’d make an educated guess and lower prices to be competitive. Now they can adjust prices and see immediately what effect it has and ensure they only drop just enough to stay in the game without giving up too much.
True? Not sure but would not surprise me and certainly doable.