Greater transparency for JetBlue fares
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Bargain-hunters rejoice! Side by side comparisons of JetBlue fares with the competition are now possible.
A significant number of people are seemingly hard-wired to go straight to the websites of discount carriers JetBlue or Southwest, assuming that they’ll have the lowest prices. This isn’t always true, but many people think it’s true, and it takes some extra legwork (or at least extra pointing and clicking) to figure out which airline really is cheapest.
You won’t find Southwest or JetBlue fares on Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, or Opodo, so you can’t compare their fares. The reason: Southwest and JetBlue don’t participate in the GDS’s (Global Distribution Systems) — worldwide computer networks that share fare and reservation information with authorized users like travel agencies and the big online booking sites.
Southwest and JetBlue, much like Amazon.com and WalMart, have trained a large subset of consumers to shop them first, without comparing the competition. But online travel search aggegator Kayak.com,which runs parallel searches on multiple travel websites, recently added JetBlue to the search.
It’s not as useful as having JetBlue in the GDS’s, but it’s a big step toward greater transparency, which helps the consumer.
tags: travel | air travel | JetBlue
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March 6th, 2007 at 8:41 pm |
[…] Hypocrisy! Southwest’s business model is based in large part on making apples-to-apples comparisons with other airlines impossible! Southwest’s fares are not searchable on the global reservation systems, or on the major online booking sites, BECAUSE that would make the fares easier to compare. Southwest wants its customers to assume that its fares are the lowest, and to avoid comparison shopping. (JetBlue does this, too, though there is a workaround.) […]
March 12th, 2007 at 8:23 pm |
[…] searchable by the big travel agencies. (There is a workaround for JetBlue fares, which I reported here.) The masses, assuming the discount airlines are the cheapest, simply buy on […]
May 17th, 2007 at 10:39 pm |
[…] companies to pull up fares. What does it mean for you? Easier comparison shopping. (Some background here, from when jetBlue similarly linked up other sites.) Until now, Southwest has never shown up in […]