Eye For Travel Summit - Criminal damage

Tim Sparrow from e-commerce payment company Cybersource did a good job of bringing to life the graveyard slot with a presentation about fraud.

Fast forward seven months and Travolution could share with you findings from its dedicated study into the travel sector. The paper is currently a work in a progress.

A few specifics did slip in. Sparrow said that the move to e-ticketing, as mandated by IATA with a 31 May 2008 deadline, would lead to more bookings being taken online, opening up more possibilities for fraudsters. ‘Small margins means fraud is a real profit killer,’ he warned.

Staying with airlines, he also revealed that, contrary to competition laws, a dozen airlines were “unofficially” sharing information about fraudulent activity. One regulatory objection to this is the possibility of “competitive blacklisting” – airline x could effectively give airline y a list of supposed dodgy customers who airline y would refuse to book.

Airlines forming unofficial cartels? Surely not.

Martin Cowen, chief writer, Travolution