This is infuriating. Having just done a fair bit of AI-assisted work with booking.com (why should I click all the candidate hotels and check 1-star reviews, or verify if the view from the window really does include the sea as stated?), I was hoping to soon also automate the user-hostile minefield that airlines make me pass through every time I buy an airplane ticket. The amount of deceptive dark patterns on airline sites is staggering, so is their lack of competence in building UIs that work.

I was happy, because we now finally have AI to take the drudgery of our lives, so that I can write my poetry, paint and do other human stuff. But no, the airlines will ensure that the drudgery is ours, AI is only for them to use in automated "assistants".

If you now say something with the word "competition" in it, I will laugh at you out loud. There is no competition. All airlines will copy the same idiotic pattern.