FTC Demands Pricing Data From Delta, United and JetBlue

WASHINGTON — The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ordered Delta Air Lines (DL), United Airlines (UA) and JetBlue (B6) to provide information about whether and how they use personal data to set prices, bringing airline fare practices into a study spanning nine companies.

Announced October 28, the inquiry examines whether prices vary between consumers based on factors including loyalty-program participation and personal information. Each recipient has 45 days from receiving its order to respond.

The FTC issued the demands under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act, which allows studies without a specific law-enforcement purpose. The inquiry does not establish that any airline has engaged in unlawful pricing. The other recipients are Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, Target and Walmart.

What the FTC Wants to Know

The order template published by the commission seeks detailed explanations of pricing methods that use personal information. Companies must identify the tools and data inputs involved, whether those inputs vary by individual or customer group, and how they affect the price.

The requests also cover third-party suppliers, testing, consumer disclosures and the effects of those methods on prices and revenue. Most requests cover January 1, 2023, through full compliance; requests for certain research and testing extend back to 2021.

For airlines, those questions reach beyond whether a fare changes. They ask what information drives the change and whether it depends on who is shopping. The template also seeks information about customer segmentation, making the distinction between an individual traveler and a broader passenger category relevant to the study.

Changing Fares and Personalized Prices

Delta has described its existing pricing process as responding to demand, competitors and aggregated purchasing data. In a July 31, 2025 letter published August 7, the airline said its Fetcherr artificial intelligence (AI) trial supported analysts by forecasting demand and recommending adjustments. It said it did not share personal information with Fetcherr or use personal data in ticket pricing.

That describes a different mechanism from the FTC's definition of personalized pricing: using personal data to estimate what an individual is willing to spend. A change in the fare available for a flight, by itself, does not establish that the airline has priced it according to a particular traveler's identity.

In responses to the new inquiry, Delta and JetBlue denied using personal data to set individualized fares, the Associated Press reported. JetBlue said demand and seat availability determine its fares and that all customers can access the same fares.

Disclosure Is a Separate Policy Question

The FTC had already sought comment in August on a proposed personalized-pricing enforcement policy. The agency said undisclosed use of personal information to set an individual price could violate the FTC Act. Chairman Andrew Ferguson also acknowledged that the commission lacks authority to ban personalized pricing in every circumstance.

A disclosed loyalty benefit and a price inferred from a passenger's willingness to pay raise different questions about what the customer understands. The new inquiry explicitly includes loyalty participation, but its announcement does not declare loyalty benefits unlawful.

The immediate requirement is for companies to supply information. The October announcement sets no new airfare rule or timetable for regulatory changes. The FTC says it can seek to compel compliance in federal court if recipients fail to respond. That would be the extend of the hoopla.

What Would Establish That a Price Is Personalized?

Airline pricing involves several distinct decisions. A 2021 technical paper by IATA's Sébastien Touraine distinguishes controlling the availability of preset fares through booking classes from calculating prices dynamically. It also treats the selection of products in an offer as a separate decision from setting their prices.

Those distinctions matter when comparing tickets. Seat-inventory controls determine which fare levels are available. A loyalty offer can apply a stated membership benefit. Segmentation can distinguish groups through conditions such as advance purchase or refundability. An individualized price based on personal information requires a further connection: data about the shopper must influence the amount offered for the product. These mechanisms can overlap, so identifying a loyalty member or presenting a different bundle does not, by itself, establish that connection.

Published research already goes beyond general claims about AI. A 2019 paper by Naman Shukla and coauthors reports a live airline-website experiment in pricing add-ons using trip and shopping context. Its inputs included booking class, group size and length of stay. The technology provider participated in the research. That is evidence of a reported contextual-pricing trial, rather than an independent audit establishing personal-data-based airfare pricing at Delta, United or JetBlue.

One way to test the narrower airfare question would be to compare equivalent offers while varying personal information and controlling for the flight, cabin, fare conditions, included services, sales channel, currency, timing, inventory changes and disclosed discounts. Repeated price differences would warrant examination; controlled experiments or pricing-system records could help establish what caused them. The FTC's requests for input-level explanations and testing records could help distinguish those mechanisms.

Do Delta, United or JetBlue use personal information to set different airfares for otherwise equivalent offers—and what independently testable evidence would establish it?