Skift Take
Who's more important to the airlines: shareholders or passengers? Take one guess.
What happens when you ask three airline executives some tough questions in front of a crowd of travel professionals? Not much, apparently.
Travel Leaders Franchise Group president Roger E. Block had one-on-one time with airline execs in front of a few hundred travel agents yesterday at the ASTA Global Convention in Washington, D.C.
With the Lufthansa Group slated to impose its 16 euro surcharge beginning today, travel agents are upset that Lufthansa's move will effectively make them less competitive than the airline group's own sites, which don't charge the extra fee.
United, American, and Delta executives, who are likely jittery about a U.S. Department of Justice probe into possible price collusion, didn't have anything to offer about a response to the surcharge, or whether they would adopt a similar policy in the future.
In fact, they wouldn't even appear together in what was supposed to be a panel discussion but instead Block interviewed them one-on-one.
"Lufthansa is a great partner of ours, but I can't speak on behalf of Lufthansa," s
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