WASHINGTON, July 22 (Reuters) - Three Democratic

senators have pressed Delta Air Lines ( DAL ) CEO Ed Bastian to

answer questions about the airline's planned use of artificial

intelligence to set ticket prices, raising concerns about the

impact on travelers.

"Delta's current and planned individualized pricing

practices not only present data privacy concerns, but will also

likely mean fare price increases up to each individual

consumer's personal 'pain point' at a time when American

families are already struggling with rising costs," Senators

Ruben Gallego, Mark Warner and Richard Blumenthal wrote in a

letter dated Monday and made public on Tuesday.

The senators cited recent comments from Delta that the

airline plans to deploy AI-based revenue management technology

across 20% of its domestic network by the end of 2025 in

partnership with Fetcherr, an AI pricing company.

They said a Delta executive had earlier told investors the

technology is capable of setting fares based on a prediction of

"the amount people are willing to pay for the premium products

related to the base fares."

The airline said in a statement: "There is no fare product

Delta has ever used, is testing or plans to use that targets

customers with individualized offers based on personal

information or otherwise."

Delta added that dynamic pricing has been used for more than

three decades, in which pricing fluctuates based on a variety of

factors like overall customer demand but not a specific

consumer's personal information.

Delta said AI technology for dynamic pricing is being tested

to eliminate manual processes while accelerating analysis and

adjustments and it emphasized all customers see the same exact

fares and offers in all retail channels.

Delta said it was testing AI for use in forecasting

demand for specific routes and flights, adapting to market

conditions in real-time, factoring thousands of variables

simultaneously and learning from each pricing decision to

improve future outcomes.

In January, Blumenthal along with Senators Maggie Hassan and

Josh Hawley asked Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines

to disclose whether they were manipulating seat fees by using

customers' personal information to charge different fees to

passengers on the same flight.

The senators said the airlines were apparently "using

customers' personal information to charge different seat fees to

passengers on the same flight" despite having the same fare.

Frontier and Spirit did not immediately respond to requests

for comment on their current practices on Tuesday.