American Airlines this week filed an antitrust lawsuit against online travel agency Orbitz and global distribution system Travelport Ltd. as the third-largest U.S. carrier continues its quest to trim ticket distribution costs by trying to cut out some of the middlemen.
American pulled its flights from Orbitz in December over that company's resistance to the airline's request that it use its so-called AA Direct Connect reservation system.
The airline said in the complaint filed Tuesday that New York-based Travelport "effectively controls the distribution of airline tickets to a large number of business travelers" and that "Travelport and Orbitz have entered into agreements with one another and with others to exclude competition."
Chicago-based Orbitz and Travelport deny wrongdoing.
The airline, owned by Fort Worth, Texas-based AMR Corp., recently settled a similar dispute with online travel agent Expedia for undisclosed terms.
The lawsuit is the latest development in an ongoing battle between the airline and third-party travel companies over control of ticket sales, especially to corporate travelers who tend to buy tickets through global distribution systems.
"Travelport has always acted in a lawful manner," the company said Wednesday in an e-mailed statement. "It is likely that this lawsuit is merely another attempt by AA to gain bargaining leverage through litigation."
Travelport owns three of the five big ticket distribution systems used by travel agents.
Industry experts say the lawsuit could take years to resolve and could help shape the future of airline ticket sales.
"The airlines want to bypass the global distribution systems," said Rick Seaney, chief executive officer of FareCompare.com. One concern is if airlines are successful in bypassing global distribution systems, travelers and travel agents will have to go to individual carriers for ticket information, making it hard to comparison shop.
"Airlines would rather have us on their own website because they wouldn't have to pay segment fees," said East Rutherford travel agent Rick Ardis, who is the regional head of the American Society of Travel Agents.
American, which wants to get more customers to use AA Direct Connect, said in the lawsuit it could cut its distribution costs by half if not for exclusivity agreements and other practices such as incentives that third-party reservation systems pay to travel agents to steer business their way.
American, which says fees it pays to Travelport are "excessive,'' seeks triple damages from lost ticket sales and higher fees, plus punitive damages. It also wants the government to make Orbitz and Travelport stop engaging in practices the airline describes as anticompetitive.
Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, is one advocate for lower fares and better service who has little sympathy for the airline.
"American wants to impose its vision, single-handedly, on the future of travel distribution, and it's losing," he said. "What's fairly hilarious is that most of this lawsuit is about the business model that they developed."
American Airlines decades ago created the first global distribution system, Sabre, which it later spun off.
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