INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM, TRAVEL AND HOSPITALITY LAW Thus, during the reported period, although there had been high price peaks on some of the indicated routes, the offers would have varied due to adjustments made on account of bookings. Therefore, the Authority did not find any violation of the competition promotion regulation and, in particular, the existence of restrictive agreements. Moreover, the Authority itself emphasized that "the observed market outcome" may have stemmed from "motives other than the alleged collusion"31; other factors may have contributed, including the frequent use of automated systems. The Authority has stated that it is unable to assess whether their use has a distorting effect, due to the lack of precise knowledge of the phenomenon. This outcome is relevant and calls into question the importance of the recent Italian provisions; the public administration's efforts have not led to conclusive results and, on the contrary, have highlighted how the subject does not lend itself to objective analysis at reasonable cost. 3. TARIFFS IN AIR TRANSPORT, RESTRICTIVE AGREEMENTS AND SO-CALLED PROFILING According to Article 1 of Decree - Law No. 104 of 2023, the Authority must intervene if “the algorithmic coordination of the tariffs charged” could lead to an agreement restricting competition or “the price level set through a revenue management system constitutes an abuse of a dominant position”. Thus, the distorting effects should depend on the use of automated mechanisms preordained to favour collusive conduct or abuse. The rule assumes that the systems are knowable and, in essence, the Authority should scrutinise their operation so that it can assess the data entered and their governance. Therein lies the weakness of the arrangement; in fact, the decision - making process of algorithms is complex, particularly in the case of machine learning. It is a dynamic system, in which instructions are recalibrated over time in an automated manner, and it is based on a probabilistic method, since the result is not predictable, as it derives from links between variables that do not correspond to relations of a causal nature; therefore, from a technical point of view, the decision can only be clarified and explained ex post, with reverse engineering models, at high costs that increase as the algorithm becomes more and more articulated and, in any case, with settings 31 See Order No. 31014 of 2024.
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