Amidst turmoil in the Middle East, domestic travel giant Trip.com Group Limited (TCOM.US) has found itself in the spotlight once again. A 5.55 million yuan airfare went viral, sparking public anger against the company over the weekend. Following US military strikes on Iran, several surrounding countries closed their airspace, Dubai Airport suspended flight operations, numerous flights were canceled, and many tourists were stranded at airports. Under these extreme circumstances, Damascus became one of the few locations in the Middle East with available departing flights. However, on February 28th, a user posted screenshots showing fares from Damascus to Shanghai on the Trip.com app reaching as high as 5.55 million yuan, with lower-priced options still at 3.82 million, 1.18 million, and 700,000 yuan respectively.
The exorbitant prices immediately ignited heated online discussion. While users acknowledged that tense Middle Eastern conditions would inevitably cause ticket prices to surge due to supply-demand imbalance, a jump to over 5.5 million yuan was widely deemed outrageous. One user quipped, "Are you buying a seat or buying the plane?" Others speculated it was more likely a system error. Indeed, Trip.com soon removed the anomalous flights and explained the issue was due to a supplier operational error causing abnormal front-end display. The company clarified that the actual ticket price was approximately ten thousand yuan and emphasized that airfares on its platform are entered and sold by suppliers, with Trip.com acting solely as a display and matching platform that does not profit from such errors.
Although the bug was fixed, online criticism of Trip.com persisted. Some netizens argued that the company's response was an attempt to shift blame, pointing out that as an intermediary platform, Trip.com should bear responsibility for reviewing prices set by its suppliers. The incident directly highlighted a loophole in Trip.com's internal systems regarding supplier oversight. In response, Trip.com stated to media that it would enhance internal procedures, including reviewing internal pricing from ticketing partners, and conduct price audits on all routes to ensure reasonable and transparent pricing and prevent future occurrences of sky-high tickets.
Public dissatisfaction with Trip.com and other Online Travel Agency (OTA) platforms is long-standing. Issues like "paying extra for priority booking" and "algorithmic price discrimination" are recurring topics, with user complaints emerging consistently over the years. In August and September last year alone, Trip.com was summoned by market regulatory authorities in Guizhou Province and Zhengzhou, Henan Province, over potential practices including enforcing "exclusive dealing," using technical means to interfere with merchant pricing, breaching or raising prices after order confirmation, price fraud, and price gouging, as well as "unreasonably restricting platform merchants' transactions and pricing using technical means."
In December, the Yunnan Tourism Homestay Association initiated anti-monopoly rights protection actions against OTA platforms, including Trip.com, alleging that certain platforms, notably Trip.com, were leveraging their market dominance to impose unfair practices on the Yunnan homestay industry, such as "exclusive dealing" clauses and unilaterally increasing commission rates. Following multiple regulatory summonses and collective维权 actions, on January 14th of this year, the State Administration for Market Regulation, based on preliminary investigations, filed a case against Trip.com Group Limited for suspected abuse of market dominance in violation of the Anti-Monopoly Law of the People's Republic of China.
After the anti-monopoly investigation was launched, Trip.com was summoned by relevant authorities twice more. For instance, during the Spring Festival holiday, on February 12th, Trip.com was among 12 third-party online train ticket sales platforms summoned by the Beijing Market Supervision Administration. The authorities explicitly demanded a halt to暗示付费可获优先购票特权, prompt rectification of misleading宣传 like "speed-up packs," "dual channels," and "ticket availability monitoring" after tickets were sold out, avoidance of using the 12306 logo to mislead consumers, and strict adherence to明码标价 and other compliance requirements.
On February 13th, Trip.com was among six travel platforms jointly summoned by the National Financial Regulatory Administration, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the People's Bank of China concerning their "embedded lending" models. However, half a month after these summonses, a Sichuan Daily report indicated that some of the six platforms, including Trip.com, were still selling paid priority booking services, even hinting at "special channels" or "technical advantages," with some platforms deliberately avoiding整改 issues and refusing to respond citing "commercial secrets" or "business divisions."
Misfortune seldom comes alone. Just one month after the anti-monopoly case was filed, the company's core management team experienced significant upheaval. At the very beginning of the Year of the Horse, Trip.com announced major personnel changes: two co-founders, Fan Min and Ji Qi, resigned. In its Q4 and full-year 2025 earnings announcement, Trip.com disclosed that effective February 25, 2026, co-founder Fan Min resigned from his positions as director and president, and co-founder Ji Qi resigned from his director position. The board of directors issued a statement praising the founders highly, stating they "made fundamental and immeasurable contributions to the company's founding, growth, and success," and thanked them for their long-term dedicated service. Concurrently, the company appointed Wu Yihong and Xiao Yang as new independent directors to bolster the board's structure.
Looking back at Trip.com's history, in May 1999, James Liang, Neil Shen, Fan Min, and Ji Qi jointly founded the company, later known in the industry as the "Four Gentlemen of Ctrip." They divided responsibilities based on their expertise: James Liang set the strategy, Neil Shen handled finance, Ji Qi managed operations, and Fan Min integrated resources. In August 2005, Neil Shen left Trip.com to join Sequoia Capital as a partner, embarking on an investment career. Fan Min and Ji Qi remained with the company. In recent years, Trip.com's Chairman James Liang has been more active publicly as a demographics expert.
Now, with the departure of both Fan Min and Ji Qi, the only founding team member remaining on the board is James Liang, whom some perceive as being distracted by his external interests. Public information shows Trip.com's shareholding structure is relatively dispersed. The largest shareholder is Baidu Group, holding a 7% stake. James Liang is the third-largest shareholder with a 5.3% stake. Among the top ten shareholders are several well-known overseas institutions, such as Capital World Investors and BlackRock, holding 6.2% and 5.3% respectively, making them the second and fourth-largest shareholders.
The shocking news of the two co-founders' departures somewhat overshadowed Trip.com's strong financial results. The earnings report showed that Trip.com's net operating revenue for Q4 2025 reached RMB 15.398 billion, a year-on-year increase of 20.8%; net profit was RMB 4.273 billion, surging 95% year-on-year. Full-year net operating revenue reached RMB 62.409 billion, up 17.1% year-on-year; net profit reached RMB 33.386 billion, an increase of 93.8% year-on-year.
However, this explosive profit growth was primarily driven by investment gains. The company disclosed that investment gains included in other income/(expense) for the full year 2025 amounted to a substantial RMB 19.9 billion, compared to only RMB 1.1 billion in 2024. This was mainly due to Trip.com's announcement in June 2025 that it would reduce its stake in part of the Class B ordinary shares of Indian online travel platform MakeMyTrip Limited, with a transaction value of approximately $2.5 to $3 billion. The proceeds from this transaction were received in the third quarter, and the company recognized other income, including this transaction, of RMB 17.032 billion. This boosted the company's Q3 net profit to RMB 19.89 billion, a 194.01% year-on-year increase, with the single-quarter net profit not only surpassing the company's quarterly revenue but also exceeding that of Kweichow Moutai for the first time. Excluding this factor, Trip.com's core business still maintained steady growth.
Facing an anti-monopoly investigation, repeated regulatory summonses, core management instability, and the departure of two co-founders, the question remains: can James Liang continue to focus on his role as a "demographics expert," and what path will Trip.com take next?
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