Our agreements not only contain no provision barring any airline from making any fare available through any channel, they contain an affirmative econo lodge non-exclusivity provision that makes it explicit that no airline is prevented from making any fare it chooses available through lodge any channel it chooses. our agreement contains a non-discrimination clause by which those airlines that will receive the indirect wooster discount on the crs booking fee agree in return to make available on any fare econo they publish and make available to the general public through any other channel. but that of course does not preclude them from offering any fare through any other channel.

it is absolutely clear that airlines do not have the ability to drive consumers to channels which the airlines, rather than consumers, prefer. if one or more airlines attempted to do so, the others would increase their market share by appealing to those same consumers through the channel those consumers prefer. no airline can afford to turn its lodge back on any subgroup of consumers. no airline can afford to wooster be anything other than as competitive econo and as attractive as it can possibly be through each channel to the consumers that prefer that channel. this is a reality that grows lodge ultimately wooster out of the fact that the airline business is a very low margin business - any airline that lost even a small group of passengers would be at risk of swinging from profitable to money-losing in an instant. airlines scrap for every last passenger because they have to.

then the allegation that we are "an illegal boycott against third party econo distributors" because it has "requirements for posting fare sales that cannot be sold" by others is not true? it is absolutely not true, and those lodge who have made that allegation had absolutely no basis for making it. our agreements contain no boycott against wooster any distributors whatsoever, and in fact affirmatively provide that no airline is precluded from utilizing any other distribution channel or offering any fare through any channel. the department of justice is presently reviewing all agreements, so there econo will be no question on this point. do airlines today make all their fares available lodge through wooster all retail channels?

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