The black market that wasn’t Hrush
There is an unwritten code of ethics that governs newspapers and news organisations the world over. As consumers of the news, we expect that these organisations be dedicated to reporting the news factually, accurately and without bias. The larger the audience a newspaper has, the greater the expectation that it strictly adhere to journalistic integrity. The number one rule of journalistic integrity is that one should report the news, not manufacture it or conjure it up out of thin air.
The Times of India, India’s largest selling English daily, ran a story yesterday entitled Jet strike saw online agents hijack fares. Now, it is one thing for a newspaper to print sensationalist headlines, but to completely manufacture a story and falsify news crosses the line. The story alleges that online travel agents took advantage of the Jet Airways’ pilots’ strike to gouge customers and raise prices:
Online travel portals have reportedly been found to have raised fares to astronomical levels by means of “black marketing and hoarding,” according to a top aviation ministry official. “We have found that some portals and airlines devised ways of going to fare levels of a nearly full flight to sell tickets at a premium,” the official said.
This journalist is clearly from another planet; a planet where editors allow stories to be published even when they don’t contain a single fact. The journalist has several quotes in the story from ‘aviation ministry officials”, but each quote is anonymous. The journalist also alleges that online travel companies pre-purchase tickets from airlines, something none of the online travel companies actually do.
The journalist does not interview or name even a single customer that was offered or purchased these ‘astronomical’ fares. Neither does the journalist present any research or evidence that shows price comparisons on online sites, nor is any particular online site named in the article.
The journalist goes on to state that tickets have “been sold for up to Rs 20,000.” And that statement is what leads us to believe that this journalist actually writes for The Times of Mars and his story was mistakenly filed with The Times of India.
This graph shows the average price for one-way tickets sold by Cleartrip over the last two weeks:
The average price for the time period is Rs. 2,829; with a high of Rs. 2,952 and a low of Rs. 2,747. The actual numbers are a far cry from the journalist’s imaginary Rs. 20,000 levels.
If this story was actually written to report the news on this planet, we have a tip for The Times of India‘s reporters–a news article is referred to as a ‘story,’ but that doesn’t mean you get to make it up. Sloppy, lazy and sensationalist reporting is something we expect from tabloids, not from newspapers.
Random question: Could it be, there is a small seasonality associated with ticket prices over a M-F week?
That ToI article is raw sewage, and they should be sued.
The prices DID shoot up during the strike, but it was teh airlines, not the online agents, who raised their prices. The excuse given was that it was based on passenger load and based on a formula used by the industry (which may or may not be true), but I personally checked Kingfisher’s site and saw them offering a one way ticket from Mumbai to Bangalore at 16K INR. I eventually bought it from Cleartrip at that price, but I was very clear that Cleartrip was reflecting the price offered by Kingfisher. For the record, the previous day I paid less than 6K INR for the Bangalore-Mumbai sector.
How would a travel agent pre-book flight tickets without knowing names of the passengers, their destinations and matching names on credit cards?
Reminds me of the recent Facebook-Techcrunch fax fiasco — publishing "stories" without getting a clarification from the people in question.
Atul — for what it’s worth, most airline systems are designed to raise prices as a flight gets fuller. The practice is called "yield management" in industry parlance.
Hrush, your response is apt. I disagree with you on one bit – IMHO, TOI is a tabloid and not a newspaper.
Chirayu — your comment is spot on. They may label themselves a ‘newspaper,’ but their actions are those of a pamphleteer. And we all know that actions speak louder than words.
You are barking up the wrong tree. TOI is yellow journalism. They do not care if it is right or wrong. Filling up space and filling it with crappy, unresearched and baseless stories is more important for them. I remember asking a very senior TOI scribe(editor in a smaller city) as to why is TOI so shitty. His answer was that it is a business strategy. People want to read such shit. They being #1 in India proves them right.
Guys, while I agree that the paper reported without fact-checking and without quoting named sources, a shrill response only shows immaturity on our part.
A mature response includes the data provided by Hrush and facts to counter the anonymous quotes.
But slander and name calling makes you no better than them. Its time the internet industry shows a maturity level sorely lacking to date.
As of them have said, TOI is good for Page 3 news and not for serious stuff
I have been using ClearTrip for my bookings and it is exceptional.
To clarify whether the charges were bloated, I booked two Mumbai-Bangalore tickets on Jet Aiways[after it announced it's 50% off scheme] from ClearTrip and the charges were exactly what was on the Jet site.
IMHO, I have never found any discrepancy in ClearTrip’s charges wrt that appearing on individual airline’s site.
R.I.P [GONE] Times of India
-Himanshu Sheth.
Undoubtedly TOI has goofed up,I am glad Cleartrip took it up. But as one can imagine since its published here it will not get the exposure it deserves.Why should TOI be allowed to get away easily ? Why don`t all the OTA`s along with IAMAI take this up more seriously?
@Hrush – why are you surprised? Anyone who has read 3 or more editions of that (used toilet) paper knows that their objective is to fill the white space between ads.
@Hari, totally disagree with you.If they can publish crap and get their readership to half-believe it, we also have a right to be heard. Even a student-journalist knows that they should have also carried a quote (rubbish as it may be) from the online agents and carriers themselves also.
In general, I don’t think an online agent can arbitrarily fix the price of a ticket – if they do spike prices this much and that too in unison as it was reportd, it will harm ticket sales and then carriers will have something to say about that.
@hari
You work for TOI…don’t you ?
@Dhruv – you’re missing the point. I agree with the data and solid facts put forth by Hrush. But any mature industry pro knows that journalists soup up things (and yes, arguably TOI does more than anyone else).
My point was simply – make solid arguments and stick to facts. No need to get shrill in the criticism (ie. use abusive language, colourful adjectives etc). My opinion is that it will make the argument more powerful, and not undermined by seeming defensiveness.
@Piyush – I dont work for TOI. Just want our industry to be heard by others too. Get abusive and you and I and Hrush will be left to drink our own cool-aid and believe that anyone outside the internet industry gives a $hit about what we say.
After reading all these comments I agree to Rajnish`s suggestion; what is the point in all of us crying , complaining about TOI in the confines of this blog. All this is not affecting the real culprit TOI in anyway.How does this become serious enough so that TOI thinks 100 times before printing such stuff at least against online businesses.
Even we have had to face some irresponsible reporting from ToI..
http://bit.ly/2YHQB post this I take all news reported with a pinch of salt…
Didn’t you know?
TOI is a proper tabloid
Once they ran a story under the Entertainment Section under the title – " Aamir Khan’s Wife Kiran Rao gets aborted ". Apparently it’s entertainment for them
Well, it surely makes us believe not to trust everything printed in the newspaper. However, big and trusted the paper is.
It’s not just such articles with TOI. It’s a lot of photos as well. They are known for it.
Try these
1. http://www.flickr.com/photos/snandy_81/3278245833/
2. http://blog.twilightfairy.in/2008/09/01/toi-believes-flickr-is-for-flicking/
3. http://blog.shantanugoel.com/2008/09/03/plagiarism-and-times-of-india-are-they-synonyms.html
or better Google "times of india flickr plagiarism"
You have not specified whether the average price is for short flights or long distance flights. Without that the information is not useful. What is the average for short distance flights, and what is it for Delhi Bangalore, Bangalore Kolkata, Kolkata Delhi , Mumbai Delhi type of flights ?