The International Air Transport Association, responding today to inquiries for a story posted in yesterday's
EuroBTN newsletter, insisted that its controversial PaxIS data product for airlines complies with new European rules preventing identification of agents and corporate clients.
"It is our opinion," said an IATA spokesman, "that the PaxIS product as it existed on 29 March was compliant with the amended CRS Code of Conduct. We understand that some travel agent groups disagree with our conclusion. That is one of the reasons we initiated discussions with the appropriate regulatory officials in an effort to assure that it meets all applicable legal requirements."
PaxIS, short for "Passenger Intelligence Services," featured aggregated air passenger data captured through the IATA Billing and Settlement Plan and sold to carriers.
Last week, the European Commission confirmed that airlines are covered by its newly amended CRS Code of Conduct requiring all global distribution system-generated data to mask the identities of agents and corporate clients
(EuroBTN, May 6).
"The Commission can confirm that airlines are covered by the above legislation relating to the disclosure of travel agent identity in all market, booking and sales data products," said the EC statement. "The Commission considers that the protection of business data is a fundamental point of the Code of Conduct. Therefore, it is in close contact with IATA, the CRSs [global distribution systems] and travel agents on this matter. At this stage, the Commission is not aware that IATA will refuse to mask the identity of individual travel agencies in those products if it does not have the agencies' specific consent to have their identity revealed in IATA's data products."
Various corporate travel industry associations have complained that PaxIS does not comply with this requirement, but IATA has started talks with Commission officials to explain why it believes it is compliant.