Orbitz, the airline-backed online travel distribution portal, remains under government scrutiny for possible anti-competitive behaviour and faces a July deadline for a key report on its operation by the Department of Transportation (DoT).
It was given approval by the DoT to launch its operation one year ago and faced another examination by the department six months after its launch; it is now under further study by the DoT at the behest of Congress. A DoT spokesman says issues under consideration include the relation of the five major US airlines which own Orbit, and its pricing practices. "Whether or not we do something beyond that depends on what we find," he says.Ê"I do not anticipate that 1 July will be an endpoint to our looking at Orbitz."
The Department of Justice (DoJ), which is also investigating Orbitz, says that there is no timetable for its examination to be completed. Orbitz declined to comment on the specifics, but president Jeff Katz has expressed confidence it will be shown to be pro-consumer. Within six months of its June 2001 launch it had gained an estimated market share of almost 10%.
Robert Land, a director of the American Antitrust Institute, says that if DoT takes action against Orbitz, this could be considered a "prophylactic" measure, rather than the traditional "reactive" measures it normally takes. "The evil of Orbitz is in the long term, not the short term, if they do the harm I fear they will do," he says. Meanwhile, Michael Levine, a professor at Harvard Law School, says that contrary to claims by Travelocity and Expedia, Orbitz was not established by the airlines to eliminate other on-line travel agencies.
Source: Airline Business
