Cybersecurity Policy Report, Airlines’ Use of Surveillance Pricing Probed by Rep. Pallone, (Aug 14, 2026)

By Tom Leithauser

Details about the airline industry’s use of personal data to set prices—a practice known as surveillance pricing—have been requested by Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D., N.J.), ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

“I am very concerned about companies potentially using Americans’ personal data to determine what prices they see and pay, and I am continuing an inquiry into just how widespread this practice is,” Rep. Pallone said in a letter to eight leading U.S. airlines.

“Consumers deserve to know if businesses are using their personal information to manipulate the prices they pay or experiment with algorithms to set the prices they see,” he added.

Rep. Pallone launched an inquiry into surveillance pricing in May and sent letters to 25 retailers asking them about their use of the practice (CPR, May 13).

“The airline industry specifically has faced several public allegations of surveillance pricing,” according to his letter to Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines. His office released the letter on Wednesday.

“One study found that an airline boosted its own revenue by as much as six percent by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) pricing based on consumer information, an increase that comes at the expense of consumers,” Rep. Pallone noted.

“These actions by companies also exploit the lack of comprehensive consumer privacy regulation. Existing federal law does not sufficiently protect Americans’ data from misuse or adequately address consumer privacy concerns in surveillance pricing,” he said.

“Americans seem completely unaware that the prices they are paying, particularly and most notably when shopping online, might have been set using their own personal data,” he added.

Some states, including New Jersey and New York, have passed laws to restrict surveillance pricing or to require disclosures to customers when the practice is used.

Rep. Pallone asked the airlines to respond by Aug. 25 with information about whether they set prices using “data elements,” which he defined as “personal information about the identity, gender, age, race, employment, income, spending history or patterns, participation in any loyalty or discount programs, browsing behavior, or location, and device characteristics including, but not limited to unique device ID, IP address, battery percentage, and device type.”

“Do you disclose to customers what data you collect about them and what customer data is used to inform or set prices for products?” he asked. He also sought answers about, among other things, whether the airlines’ customers were “able to opt-out or revoke permission to collect or acquire data about them for the purpose of setting prices.”

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