A CBS News story this week on a lawsuit against JetBlue raises a familiar and uncomfortable question. The allegation is that personal data and search behavior may be used to influence the price a traveler sees. We are not here to make a judgment on the validity of the claim. Whether it proves to be true or not, it brings back a set of questions that many in managed travel thought had quieted down.
Trust in our industry often comes back to pricing and visibility. NDC has changed how offers are made available, and the attached article goes a step further by questioning whether personal information and shopping history influences those offers.
Personalization and the concerns that never really left
When NDC was first introduced, “personalization” was one of the headline ideas. The thinking was simple. The more an airline knew about a traveler, the better it could tailor an offer. That led to a real debate. Agencies pushed back on sharing personally identifiable information (PII), arguing it should not be required to return a relevant price. Many were resistant to passing PII just to facilitate an offer. That tension never fully disappeared, even if it became less visible over time.
What we know about how prices move
There is a widely held view that price changes are driven by inventory, demand, and timing rather than by identifying an individual and adjusting the price. That has been the foundation of airline revenue management for years. Recent consumer coverage has also pushed back on the idea that repeated searches alone drive higher prices, pointing instead to inventory and demand as the primary factors.
The research is mixed. A Travel & Leisure article from June, 2025 did not find evidence of search-based price manipulation, while a Travel Industry Today piece raised concerns and even offered tips on how travelers can reduce the risk of rising prices from multiple searches. There is no clear, consistent evidence that pricing is being adjusted at an individual level based on search behavior alone.
The traveler experience
Many travelers have had experiences that feel difficult to explain. Kevin and I have both seen versions of this ourselves. Different airlines, different trips, different timing. We searched for a flight, came back later, and saw a higher price. In Kevin’s case, the price moved again on a third visit. When his wife checked the same itinerary, she saw the original fare. There may be straightforward explanations. Inventory may have changed between searches. But these are the kinds of inconsistencies that keep this question alive.
Do airlines really track travelers’ searches? That part is not controversial. Most of us have experienced it. You look at a product, a hotel, or a flight and later see follow-up emails, ads, or prompts to complete the booking. That is standard practice across retail and travel.
What is less clear is how far that behavior feeds into the price itself. Tracking intent to market to someone is one thing. Potentially adjusting the price they see based on that intent is another. That is what makes the claim in this article stand out.
NDC changed the framework
This is where the conversation connects to the broader shift in airline pricing.
Under the traditional model, fares were filed through the Airline Tariff Publishing Company (ATPCo). That created a level of visibility. Travel management companies could monitor fares against corporate programs and apply Lowest Logical Airfare (LLA) standards with a clear reference point. TMCs worked with their customers inside a well-established process, and that process gave everyone confidence that travelers were getting the right price for each trip.
That framework has changed. With NDC and continuous pricing, airlines now construct offers in real time. There is no single, consistent, publicly filed fare to compare against. The airline decides what is returned for each request. Airlines describe this as delivering the right price at the right time. That may well be true. It also means the logic behind that price is no longer visible in the same way, and far harder to challenge.
HPP: highest possible price
At New M.O., we have described this dynamic as HPP, or Highest Possible Price. This is more about commercial reality than any sort of accusation. Two of the central goals of NDC were revenue growth and the ability to sell more. Without publicly available filed fares, who would blame an airline for wanting to sell the highest fare a customer is willing to pay? If the system allows them to understand willingness to pay, it is not hard to see where that could lead.
So are airlines using search history or personal data to push prices higher for individual travelers? As stated above, there is no clear evidence that this is happening in a consistent or systematic way. The bigger issue is that the current model leaves very little daylight. Buyers cannot easily see how a price has been constructed, and they have fewer tools to test whether it is fair or consistent.
What this means for corporate buyers
For corporate travel programs, that creates a problem. LLA becomes harder to apply with confidence. Program leaders are left explaining outcomes without the same level of proof they once had. Travelers notice inconsistencies and draw their own conclusions.
And so, this all comes back to trust.
As pricing becomes more dynamic and less visible, the industry is asking buyers to take more on faith. That is a difficult place to land without clearer guardrails. In the meantime, the long-held idiom, trust but verify, feels especially relevant.
