VIEWS OF THE TRAVEL TRADE

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• VIEWS OF THE TRAVEL TRADE
• ON EUROPEAN LEGISLATION ON CRSs
• Michel de Blust
• Secretary General, ECTAA - GEBTA
• www.ectaa.org
• www.gebta.org

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ECTAA GEBTA

• Together represent 80.000 businesses in Europe
• 30.500 IATA travel agencies in Europe issued 138
  million tickets in 2006 (IATA BSP data)
• The vast majority of ticket sales on network
  carriers are processed through CRSs

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Why is CRS regulation crucial for ECTAA-GEBTA?

• 1. No EU Internal Market for air transport ?
  Fragmentation and Dominances
• 2. Strong potential for abuses leading to
  increases of costs and final prices
• 3. Differentiated content between distribution
  channels at the detriment of travellers

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Fragmentation, dominance and potential for abuse

• EU air transport market ? US market Dominance of
  airlines and ultra-dominance of CRSs on national
  markets
• Potential for abuse as soon as airline and CRS
  have profit redistribution / even stronger
  potential if double dominance
• Special concerns for 3 markets France, Germany,
  Spain

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Without specific rules

• Reinforcement of dominant positions, notably for
  associated airline and CRS
• Increase of costs / final price for travellers
• Difficulty to provide comprehensive and neutral
  offer, especially for SME travel agents
• Difficulty and delays to apply general
  competition rules

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Parent carrier mandatory participation

• Absolute necessity to put effective obligations
  on parent carriers
• Non-discrimination in access to content and
  bookings
• Prohibition to link the use of a CRS to any
  incentive/disincentive
• EU market those safeguards must be applicable to
  any carrier with control or any level of
  ownership stake in a CRS

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Access to fares

• Online/offline travel agents only neutral access
  to comprehensive air transport offer thanks CRSs.
• Liberalisation of access to fares
• Increase of costs for CRS/travel agents (e.g. US)
  risk of final price increase for travellers
• in EU market risks of content fragmentation
  between distribution channels
• Optimum review of CRS Regulation guarantee
  unbiased and reasonably priced access to full
  content for all CRS subscribers

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• Thank you for your attention!
• For more information, please go to
• www.ectaa.org
• www.gebta.org