Tuesday, April 15, 2008

EasyJet and the payment issue

Much chatter in the industry these past few days after EasyJet opened up its product feed to leisure bookings.

Comtec has also annouced it will be handling a live feed from EasyJet in order for leisure clients to take bookings of EasyJet fares.

Much of this development is because EasyJet is trying to crack down on the seemingly endless scraping of its site, keeping many of the meta search engines in traffic.

What's the point of having a UK-focused flight meta search engine if you don't include EasyJet content, is an obvious question.

But the smallprint is very interesting. Reports suggest that EasyJet will charge £10 per booking every time a transaction is made using data from the feed.

The question is this: will an offline agent be able to persuade a customer to part with £10 just because they made the booking for them? Or will they see through it and simply go to EasyJet.com at home to secure the flight element of a trip?

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

So forgive me for being dim - are we essentially talking a reverse affiliate model here?

Instead of paying a commission for referrals, they are charging one?

Anonymous said...

To try and answer your question , I think that some Offline customers will see through it but many won't. Those people who like to pay cash will use the agency service, as will those presented with an ATOL bonded package price that hides the flight price. Also don't forget that an agent using a debit card can make savings versus a member of the public using a credit card.
http://jetvine.blogspot.com/2007/12/analysis-credit-card-charges.html

The question for offline is more, what is to stop agents using data from the feed but then making the booking themselves directly on easyjet.com (and perhaps taking advantage of a promotional code too!)

Travolution Blogger said...

Vicky: yes, you are right.

Travolution Blogger said...

James: indeed, there will be nothing to stop agents doing that. but of course customers may equally think "well, i can do this at home myself".

Anonymous said...

This just shows how little the OTA is considered by airlines these days.

The agent has to take the credit card transaction risk for for a fraction of the full amount that maybe added on as a service charge.

Unless you're shifting thousands of seats with an airline you get nothing.

Easyjet now charging to give them business is really just a joke.

The simple answer is no one will book because people aren't stupid.

Maybe Easyjet think the OTA's are...?