Cross Border Ticketing – The Final Frontier?

It is one of life’s great mysteries. You can do anything technically on the web, but political and commercial constraints prevent access to products across borders.
Recently the Wall Street Journal did an analysis on the countries of Middle East and Asia looking at which countries did the most internet filtering and the levels of penetration in those markets. Suffice to say there is a lot of government web filtering going on in many markets. The well publicized issue of Google enabling access to information to at least one government is probably the tip of the iceberg of how governments wish to choose to manage their subjects. This is not a good sign.

But in our (travel) business there is too a specialized form of commercial constraint by the powers that be. Some of the reasons are admirable some are not. Protecting the innocent and the weak should be a goal for all. Allowing the global mega brands to dominate all markets is something that should be of concern. However the one that somewhat gets me is the issue of Cross Border ticketing. Now comes evidence that this is not a theoretical issue but a growing problem for companies trying to constrain their products.

I think there is a definite underlying belief that airlines do not want users to know their true pricing. Transparency is a complete anathema to the sale of a legacy airline product. The hoops through which carriers make the consumer jump has contributed significantly to both the cost and complexity of the airline based product. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Carriers will probably jump up and down and say it’s a good thing. Consumers will beg to differ.

According to Forrester, more than a third of all European consumers online have purchased something cross border. Given the difficulty of doing so in Travel probably constrains the number in Travel below the average although I have no direct evidence. Targeting The European Cross-Border Buyer is a paper worth a read.

The European Commission has actually banned the practice of any commercial constraint of purchase in the single European market. However getting an IATA license to issue a pan European ticket is still not a even a possibility more than 10 years after the major expansion of the market. Theoretical yes – actually – definitely not

I do believe that over time – there will be a lessening of the practice. The airline based obfuscation of pricing will have to be simplified. If there is one lesson to be learned from the recent sharp downturn in the global economy – you need to be able to react much more quickly. If you think about it, not allowing cross border electronic ticketing is – well rather silly.

Cheers