Spanish Data Firm 'Investigating' Questionable Release Of Corp. Travel Info

An eSmash report shared with The Beat showed great detail about the corporate client's air spend through its unique IATA location, including the client's total spend on every route, number of tickets on each route, spend and market share with Accelya's customer airline on each route, average fare on each route and average fare with the customer airline on each route. Information is displayed for routes not only served by the airline but also those which were not.

"I support airlines getting some data, because it is important for their route and capacity planning, but this level of detail and the ability to identify us is not in our interest," said the travel buyer. "It is not their data and it is none of their business. Why should they get our data even for routes they do not fly?"

The buyer pointed out some of the potentially pernicious implications of the information seen by the airline. On routes served by two carriers, for example, Accelya's customer carrier will know exactly what market share the corporation is giving to the other airline because it can see its own market share. Meanwhile, by comparing the average fare spent on a route with the average fare spent with the customer airline, the airline can identify an opportunity to raise its negotiated fare. The report shows clear evidence of the airline in question raising its fares under such circumstances during a 12-month period. "This sort of detail is exactly why the European Commission masked MIDT," the travel manager said. 

The key section of the 2009 CRS Code of Conduct is Article 7. Although entitled "Marketing Information Data Tapes," paragraph 1 of Article 7 refers more generally to "any marketing, booking and sales data ... made available by system vendors." Most crucially, paragraph 3 states: "Where such data result from the use of the distribution facilities of a CRS by a subscriber [travel agent] established in the Community, they shall include no identification either directly or indirectly of that subscriber unless the subscriber and the system vendor agree on the conditions for the appropriate use of such data. This applies equally to the supply of such data by the system vendors to any other party for use by this party other than for billing settlement."  

Although the code originally was created to deal with MIDT data, the European Commission subsequently has cited the regulations requiring IATA to mask agency data revealed through its similar PaxIS product—unless the agency agrees otherwise. IATA had argued that whereas MIDT is based on booked data, PaxIS is based on ticketed data generated through the BSP settlement process and therefore not subject to the code. However, a Statement of Objections issued by the European Commission in November 2011 provisionally ruled that PaxIS also breaches the code because it identifies sales at the travel agency level.

An online brochure for eSmash boasts: "With eSmash, successful airlines obtain accurate, detailed origin-destination information regarding their travel agents' performance, as well as the airline industry performance in any market." It also says eSmash "detects high-selling agents that are not selling for your airline."

Although the brochure does not explain how the information for eSmash is sourced, Accelya states on its website that "after 30 years of cooperating, we are now in charge of processing more than 55 percent of all invoicing between travel agents and airlines for the IATA world. This includes the transmission of all payment instructions to clearing banks for secure and timely transfers from the travel agents to the airlines. We also host the global IATA database BSPLink and provide access to more than 50,000 air travel related actors."

According to Accelya's written statement, "Accelya's eSmash product provides a valuable service to the air travel industry. The data supplied within eSmash is extensive, but it is not the objective of eSmash to identify passengers or corporate users. It complies with all applicable laws.

"We should point out that the relevant provisions of the CRS Code of Conduct apply only to the operators of computer reservation systems," the company stated in response to questions posed by The Beat about the identification of specific corporate client data. "ESmash is not a computer reservation system. However, we take all comments relating to our service very seriously. As a result, we are investigating your statement carefully. It appears that the instance you mention relates to an agent who acts for one corporation only, in exclusivity. This is a consequence of the way in which this agent runs its business. As we have stated above, the objective of eSmash is not to provide this information, therefore we will have to conduct a deeper analysis."

Isabelle Leroy, legal adviser for European travel agents' association ECTAA, which filed the complaint that led to the European Commission ruling on PaxIS, said: "Our understanding of Article 7(3) is that it covers any product for another use than billing settlement stemming from data provided by a CRS to IATA. This concerns IATA's product PaxIS but also any third-party product coming from the same source. In this regard, the use of the IATA number to identify an agent's air ticket sales seems to indicate that the data comes out of IATA BSP and upstream from data provided by a CRS to IATA. Our views have been communicated to the European Commission, which is currently working on the enforcement of the CRS Code of Conduct."

This article was originally published by The Beat.