September 8, 2025<\/p>\n
***<\/span><\/p>\n Last week, Delta <\/span>told lawmakers<\/span><\/a>: <\/span>“There is no fare product Delta has ever used, is testing or plans to use that targets customers with individualized prices based on personal data. . . . [O]ur ticket pricing never takes into account personal data. . . . [C]ustomers are not required to sign in on delta.com or the app to shop and compare prices.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n What\u2019s going on? <\/b>In December 2023, Delta President Glen Hauenstein <\/span>told investors<\/span><\/a> that the carrier’s AI price-setting technology is capable of setting fares based on a prediction of \u201cthe amount people are willing to pay for the premium products related to the base fares.\u201d Delta said that \u201cby the end of [2025] it wants to use AI to set 20% of all fares,\u201d according to an <\/span>NPR report<\/span><\/a>. <\/span>During an investor day last year, Hauenstein further described Delta\u2019s algorithmic pricing capability: <\/span>\u201cWe will have a price that\u2019s available on that flight, on that time, to you, the individual.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Fetcherr is the AI pricing company that partners with Delta Airlines \u2013 along with other airlines including Azul, Royal Air Maroc, Virgin Atlantic, Viva Aerobus, and WestJet. \u201cWe\u2019ve been training our engine, using all the data we can get our hands on,\u201d Roy Cohen, Fetcherr\u2019s CEO <\/span>said<\/span><\/a>. <\/span>Fetcherr also described individualized pricing as using \u201c<\/span>factors like customer lifetime value, past purchase behaviors, and the real-time context of each booking inquiry,\u201d which \u201call contribute to creating a truly personalized offer.\u201d The <\/span>blog post<\/span><\/a> from last December that contained that disclosure has <\/span>since been scrubbed<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Senators sent a letter to Delta pressing for details, and Delta <\/span>responded<\/span><\/a> with a letter claiming that it doesn\u2019t use \u201cpersonal data\u201d in setting individualized prices \u2013 but it also hasn\u2019t said what data it <\/span>does<\/span><\/i> use or the extent to which pricing may differ across individual customers.<\/span><\/p>\n So does Delta use personal data?<\/b> It is not clear what Delta means by \u201cpersonal data.\u201d Companies often try to define this term narrowly \u2013 limited to obvious identifiers like names, email addresses, and phone numbers. This of course would exclude behavioral data, device fingerprinting, or other less direct identifiers \u2013 like <\/span>purchasing activity<\/span><\/a> or perhaps frequent flyer numbers. An airline that denies using \u201cpersonal data\u201d might still rely on information and inferences that are functionally personal to shape offers and prices to a person. <\/span>It\u2019s the difference between saying \u201cPope Leo\u201d (personal information), and saying \u201cthe man who currently lives at the Vatican and is the head of the Catholic church\u201d (which a company may claim does not contain personal information, but is \u2026 obviously Pope Leo).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Moreover, even if an airline relies on data that truly isn\u2019t personal to either generate or apply its pricing models, the result might still be pricing that\u2019s personal. Suppose that an airline develops a model that takes into account information like time, approximate location, web browser, device manufacturer, or other attributes that are correlated with price sensitivity but not readily linkable to a person or device. Or, alternatively, suppose that the airline uses \u201c<\/span>privacy enhancing technology<\/span><\/a>\u201d (like differential privacy) to build a model based on correlations between customer attributes and price sensitivity without considering personal information. In the end, the price that one person receives may still be different from the price that another receives.<\/span><\/p>\n And do consumers need to sign in for a company to collect data about you? <\/b>No. Not signing in doesn\u2019t mean you’re not being tracked. Companies <\/span>still collect data<\/span><\/a> about consumers \u2014 like your location, device type, browsing patterns, or <\/span>other detailed profile data<\/span><\/a> \u2014 <\/span>without being logged into a service<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Airlines have recently deployed the technical ability to determine offers and prices based on <\/b>who<\/i><\/b> a customer is, not just when or where they search. <\/b>When booking directly, the airline has the ability to provide customized offers in the same manner as any other retailer.\u00a0 But airline tickets are frequently searched for (and sometimes sold by) third-party online travel services such as Expedia or Google Flights.\u00a0 Using the <\/span>International Air Transport Association<\/span><\/a>\u2019s (IATA) <\/span>New Distribution Capability<\/span><\/a> (NDC) standard protocol, which has been in development since 2012 and is now being widely implemented, these third-party services can receive customized offers from airlines in response to a booking request. NDC requests can include data like the prospective traveler\u2019s frequent flyer number, which can be used by the airline to customize the set of flights offered and their prices. While a frequent flyer number does not contain a person\u2019s name or other more obvious identifiers, it is still personal data that can be and is tied to one individual.*<\/span> This can be used to create \u201c<\/span>personalized offers<\/span><\/a>\u201d\u00a0 that are shown to an individual in response to searches in real time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Delta\u2019s letter raises more questions than answers. <\/b>Companies vary widely in their use of data and algorithms to determine prices. Yet, public information about these practices remains sparse. The FTC published a <\/span>Study<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Request for Information<\/span><\/a> about \u201csurveillance pricing\u201d in January 2025, and <\/span>received comments from consumers<\/span><\/a> about airline ticket prices like <\/span>this<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>this one<\/span><\/a>. However, <\/span>the RFI was closed<\/span><\/a> without explanation. To better understand how individualized pricing is applied, we outline open questions for <\/span>further investigation<\/span><\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n