CRS market in Europe ‘ripe for reform’

The Coalition for Fair Access to Reservations in Europe has claimed a “growing consensus” for consumer safeguards as the European Commission prepares to reform rules governing computer reservations systems.
 
Executive director Brandon Mitchener welcomed the industry consensus around the maintenance of limited but essential rules governing the operation of CRS, which provide travellers with rapid access to route and price information.

Speaking after a Business Travel Coalition CRS conference co-sponsored by C-FARE, he said: “This is not a black-and-white choice between the status quo and complete deregulation. C-FARE’s goal is to seek sensible and responsible revisions to the CRS code of conduct for the benefit of all stakeholders.”

Ludolf Van Hasselt, head of the economic regulations unit in the Commission’s transportation directorate, told the conference that the market in Europe was “ripe for reform” but “consumers are first and foremost in our mind.”

Robert Evans, a member of the transport committee of the European Parliament, said the EU assembly would be extremely vigilant when it receives the Commission’s reform proposal this autumn. The committee would ensure “that consumers have access to unbiased and complete travel information” as a result of “carefully calibrated rules,” he said.

Mitchener said the most important guarantee was a basic requirement that all airlines with an ownership stake in a CRS make fare and routing information available in a fair and non-discriminatory way.

“This simple rule protects travel agents, corporate travel managers and leisure travellers alike from abuse,” he said.
David Schwarte, general counsel of Sabre Holdings and a member of C-FARE, said not having access to the price and routing information of major airlines in Europe would be like “operating an automatic teller machine in Brussels that can’t dispense euros”.

Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, noted that airline divestiture of CRSs “was the prerequisite for full deregulation in the US.”

“Full deregulation could turn CRSs and the travel agencies they automate into mere dealerships for dominant airlines,” he warned.

British Airways and the European Travel Agents’ and Tour Operator’s Associations (ECTAA), among others, argued that Europe needed better regulation of its CRS industry, not total deregulation, in order to prevent a return to the kind of rampant market abuses that inspired the regulation of the CRS industry in Europe and the US in the first place.

The only company at the conference calling for total deregulation was Amadeus, whose owners include Lufthansa, Air France and Iberia, according to C-FARE.

Dorothy Robyn, senior consultant at the Brattle Group, a consultancy that prepared report for the European Commission on the CRS industry in 2003, said the main difference between the travel markets in the US and Europe today was “the airline ownership of Amadeus—and you’ll have to find a way to deal with that.”

The other three leading CRSs have been independent of airline ownership since 2003.

Report by Phil Davies