Delta pulls flights from three online travel sites

By Ben Mutzabaugh
December 27, 2010

It wasn't just American Airlines pulling its flights off online travel sites last week. Perhaps lost in the shadows of AA's high-profile dispute with Orbitz, Delta also moved to remove its flight inventory from some lesser-used travel sites.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes Delta "is pulling flights from several small online travel agency sites, as it tries to increase bookings coming directly through delta.com."

Delta made the move on Dec. 17, pulling its flights from CheapOAir.com, OneTravel.com and BookIt.com. However, the carrier said tickets booked on those sites by Dec. 17 will be honored.

Aviation Week adds some perspective on the news, with reporter Andrew Compart writing that Delta's decision "does not appear to be along the same lines as American's attempt to pull out of Orbitz, which centers on American's desire for agencies to connect directly to its internal reservations system. Delta wants more customers to come directly to its website to make their purchases and is trying to more strictly limit which indirect distributors it participates in."

"The most robust experience you should have in that transaction should theoretically be our Web site," Glen Hauenstein, Delta's executive vice president of network planning, is quoted as saying by the Journal-Constitution.

"We look at it very much like an Apple store versus Best Buy," Hauenstein continued, according to Tnooz.com. "You can buy components or Apple products at both. Your experience in an Apple store is obviously quite different than it is at a Best Buy store. That model is what we think about when we think about Delta.com."

"The only surprising thing about this move is that it has taken this long," Douglas Quinby, senior research director at travel industry research firm PhoCusWright, tells Gadling.com when asked about Delta's move.

"U.S. airlines have impressively restrained their appetite for growth (i.e. capacity) on the back of a (more or less) recovering economy," Quinby adds to Gadling. With clear control of their inventory, airlines have already started rationalizing distribution, and the weakest links are first to get snipped. American may have jumped the gun a bit with Orbitz, but believe me – we ain't see nothin' yet!"

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Delta pulls flights from three online travel sites

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