IATA's Corp. ID Proposal Could Tip Bargaining Scales
<B>IATA's Corp. ID Proposal Could Tip Bargaining Scales</B>
Imagine going to buy a new car and the car salesman already has compiled your income, car preference, travel patterns and how much you can spend. You are left with little to no ability in regards to negotiating a favorable price for your new vehicle. This scenario would sway the bargaining scales toward the seller, compromising your privacy and making public your personal behavior patterns. That is what could happen to travel managers and travel programs if the International Air Transport Association is successful in instituting its proposed Corporate Client Identification Service.
The National Business Travel Association has voiced its opposition to CCIS. For the most part, the Internet and other technologies are providing wonderful benefits to our society, such as high-wage jobs, expanding educational opportunities and new modes of communication. Unfortunately, these advances also provide new opportunities for misconduct. We are seeing, and will continue to see, more violations of individual and corporate privacy rights than at any point in the past century.
NBTA actively is participating in the dialogue to improve the information sharing and bargaining between travel buyers and suppliers. NBTA recognizes the intent of IATA to facilitate a system that would make it possible for corporate customers to manage their travel business. However, we believe the proposed system was crafted and instituted without the input and at the expense of the companies that would be impacted directly by its inception.
In the current aviation market, corporations deal with overpriced airfares and single-airline-dominated markets. IATA's proposal would eliminate the one bargaining tool corporations still own, and that is data--travel patterns, including destinations, flight numbers, airline flown and class of service. The data airlines would have access to goes down to the traveler level. Airlines do not need to see this data. The deliberate bypassing of the travel manager, travel program and its procedures will give the airlines the last piece of information to market directly to the traveler.
Under the IATA proposal, the corporation will have no control of how an airline uses its data. The proposal will unmask the travel patterns and tendencies of corporations, allowing airlines, including those that a corporation is not contracted with, to sell and purchase a company's travel data.
By dismissing the views and recommendations of corporations, IATA has formed a policy that would directly infringe on the privacy rights of corporations and create an anticompetitive negotiating environment, which would allow the airlines to gain corporate and agency travel data sooner than the owners of the data.
Technology advances every day and our society has becomes increasingly tied to computer networks. These changes allow our electronic data to become more vulnerable. Because of this new vulnerability, U.S. deputy attorney general Eric Holder recently stated in a congressional hearing that the private sector should take the lead in protecting private computer networks through more vigilant security efforts and information sharing. Vigilance as it relates to this issue would mean protecting corporate travel purchasing patterns.
Customer ID codes are clear violations of the privacy rights of companies. The acquisition of data on the products sold by a company's competitor is unprecedented and would be considered a clear violation of antitrust laws in any industry. Further, regulations of the Council of the European Communities prohibit the practice of identifying passenger or corporate customers.
If there is neither a "serious transportation need," nor an "important public benefit" to support the proposal, then the price to the transportation system and, more importantly, the worth to the public outweighs IATA's contention that customers would like to track their travel expenses. Corporations already track their travel expenses effectively and efficiently. This proposal is a clear attempt to allow airlines to exchange marketing information between carriers, and is not an attempt to streamline the processing of corporate travel data.
Within this new electronic age, where purchasing patterns are obtainable by a click of the mouse, the scales within the sales environment should return to balance between the travel buyer and seller. The owners of the data, corporations, should be the only entities able to decide the accessibility and usage of their travel data. The sharing of such data would have an immediate impact on the corporations and their travelers by lessening the already low level of competition in our skies. The proposed corporate ID service should be rejected.
<I>NBTA president Cyndi Perper is Colgate-Palmolive director of corporate travel services. NBTA vice president Kevin Iwamoto is global air and car travel supplier manager at Hewlett-Packard Co.