The European Commission has launched an inquiry into whether mainstream European carriers are acting illegally by charging different fares for the same ticket in different countries. The Commission said it has received an increasing number of complaints from European Union travelers saying that fares for a route can vary by as much as 300 percent purely on the basis of the country in which they live.
Most of the complainants have observed this phenomenon when booking online as individual travelers, but the inquiry also could prove significant for companies with pan-European travel programs. European travel managers frequently have complained that their travel management companies can access fares only in the country where the journey originates, even though the fare may be cheaper if bought at the destination or in a third E.U. country.
Corporations and TMCs have argued that differential pricing across the European Union contravenes European laws intended to create a single market. This latest investigation suggests the Commission is preparing to take a similar view. "Most complaining citizens feel that this is a clear breach of the treaty provisions on non-discrimination and the internal market," the Commission said in a statement.
The inquiry echoes a recently initiated strategy by the European Commission to dismantle barriers to a single market that are imposed by the International Air Transport Association
(BTN, Dec. 8). European travel agency association ECTAA has criticized IATA for tacitly supporting airlines' discriminatory pricing. This is because airlines can threaten to have travel agents' IATA licenses removed if they breach conditions of carriage on cross-border purchasing.
IATA has written to 18 European airlines, asking them to submit details on their differential pricing by February 29, 2004.