I don't understand how companies like this get any funding. From every angle it just seems exploitative.
For agents: Getting set up properly with a GDS is not necessarily expensive, but it is a huge pain, and most agents don't want to deal with airfare at all for that matter. If they don't want to do this properly, then they're arguably doing customers a disservice (and really they should just provide them a link to book the air part themselves, but that's a controversial take in the industry). But that said, this market for agents who don't want to deal with it and/or want to markup more to skim extra off the top is very crowded with consolidators, airline portals, etc.
For customers: this is just a worse google flights that actively suppresses price transparency. It forces a new middleperson, Duffel, in the picture whenever you need to change flights (increasing latency). It enables agents to skim off the top, and with the exorbitant fees it practically guarantees worse pricing than other channels.
I can (and do) routinely issue tickets with $0 fees, always same or lower price vs if the customer booked it themselves. I also still make significant commission (sometimes over 20% on quite expensive tickets). The customer gets tickets that are cheaper or far too complex to book on any self booking website. Everyone comes out ahead. Maybe Duffel passes the (very occasional) private fare savings along, but I doubt it. Instead, they're probably doing the opposite and pocketing at least some of the commission and not even sharing it with the agent. Most experienced agents charge some fees.. that's fine. But with Duffel, those CC fees are so incredibly high that it forces agents to charge higher fees (keep in mind that in the normal scenario there is $0 true cost here. The airline is the one that charges the card - you're just giving them the CC info).
So the target is agents that don't really know how airfare works and haven't put in the effort to get set up properly (either themselves or through a partnership with an existing agency)? And it shows on the pricing page: *What if I want to use my own IATA or ARC accreditation?* *That’s no problem! If you have your own accreditation and would like to use it please contact us to discuss pricing and next steps.* Translation: "If you actually know what you're doing, we can't price gouge you so contact us to work something out."
And more insulting, from my perspective as a software engineer, they likely aren't solving any technical problems in the airline industry! Their travel consultant job postings are for people with GDS experience. So they are just using the same GDS and NDC APIs that everyone uses, skimming off the top, and charging more than real payment portals potentially just to hand the airline a credit card number.
Everyone loses except greedy agents stepping outside of their skillset to upcharge and have a customized page that matches their brand.