A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Delta Air Lines plans to use artificial intelligence to price airfares and get closer to what people may be willing to pay. The airline's president tells investors AI will be helping to set prices on about one-fifth of their domestic flights by the year's end. Marlon Hyde of member station WABE in Atlanta has our story.
MARLON HYDE, BYLINE: Twenty-one-year-old Areonna Sims is a student at the University of Kentucky. She's visiting her home in Atlanta for the weekend. She says she usually flies Delta, but the last time she did, she paid a lot.
AREONNA SIMS: It was for spring break, and it was ranging from, like, $450 to $500.
HYDE: She wonders if her hometown airline could use artificial intelligence to offer her a ticket more suitable for a college student.
SIMS: I feel like if they was able to detect that, they'd probably be like, OK, like, $200, $300 is, like, more a good price for that.
HYDE: But that is not one of the data points Delta's AI tool will be looking at, according to Laurie Garrow, who leads the air transportation lab at Georgia Tech. Full disclosure - Delta Air Lines is one of the partners at the center. She says that the technology is an evolution of the dynamic pricing model airlines have been using for decades.
LAURIE GARROW: They're feeding it data like, when did you book in advance? What market are you going to? What is the weather? If you log in, maybe historically, how many bags have I done in the past?
HYDE: Or if you often buy first- or business-class tickets.
GARROW: We might, if you're a premium customer, see higher price increases there.
HYDE: That worries 21-year-old student Ian Brown. He loves to travel and flies Delta a lot. He's not sure if that tells the AI pricing tool that he'd be willing to pay more.
IANN BROWN: If I want to find the cheapest flight because I got to go immediate somewhere, I shouldn't be determined by an AI machine to tell me, oh, well, you should pay this 'cause you can afford this much.
HYDE: Delta declined an interview for this story, but said in a statement that it never has nor plans to use an AI product that factors in personal information of its customers for individual offers. Garrow says regulations around the world differ on what data AI tools can use. In the U.S., she says...
GARROW: It's not doing things like feeding it data like what was my search history, or what is the zip code I live in, or what is my address? How old am I?
HYDE: Still, some U.S. senators worry that information like social media activity, financial status and biometric data could find their way into the AI pricing tools through third-party channels. They sent a letter to Delta asking for more details about the AI expansion. It comes as 20 airlines around the world are already using or looking into AI pricing technology, Garrow says.
GARROW: This is viewed as sort of the wave of the future.
HYDE: Meanwhile, the U.S. senators want answers to their questions from Delta by August 4.
For NPR News, I'm Marlon Hyde in Atlanta. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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