Manila Bulletin
April 23, 2011, 8:36pm
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) – American Airlines raised the stakes in its battle with ticket sellers by suing travel website Orbitz and distributor Travelport Ltd., accusing them of monopoly tactics.
American says the companies are trying to control the distribution of airline tickets to business travelers and are retaliating against American for objecting.
Orbitz and Travelport denied American's charges. Orbitz said Wednesday that American was trying to grab control over ticket distribution to limit customer choice and reduce competition.
American's antitrust lawsuit, filed this week in federal district court in Texas, is the latest twist in an ongoing battle that led American to pull its flight listings from Orbitz last December.
American officials said Travelport was the primary target of their lawsuit. The airline wants to reduce the cost of distributing tickets by requiring online travel agencies to get flight and fare information directly from its computer system, which would cut commissions that so-called global distribution systems charge for providing the data to travel agencies.
In the lawsuit American said most of its passenger revenue still comes from tickets sold by travel agents who get information from the distribution systems. Travelport owns three of the five big systems, which handled $2.7 billion in American ticket sales last year.
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