Priceline.com Booking 1,000 Tickets Daily Using AA Direct Connect

Priceline.com Booking 1,000 Tickets Daily Using AA Direct Connect

Priceline.com said that it is now booking over 1,000 tickets a day through American Airlines’ AA Direct Connect. American has been leading the airline industry’s charge in connecting directly to consumers and retailers rather than through the GDSs that have traditionally been the main marketplace for consumers and retailers to comparison shop and purchase airline tickets.

There has been heavy resistance to American’s direct connect strategy on a variety of fronts, including online sites. Expedia went so far as to drop American from its site over the winter, but reinstated American. American stopped providing Orbitz with its content in November, apparently as part of a dispute with Travelport, which owns part of Orbitz. Priceline’s use of the direct connect strategy was a victory for American. Priceline has been booking tickets through AA Direct Connect for approximately six months.

American has breached the defenses of other entities, most notably travel management companies, which have begun to adopt technologies that would enable them to use direct connect.

The GDSs themselves have some direct connect agreements with some airlines. The problem of eliminating GDSs in favor of direct connects is that it makes it harder to comparison shop and could prove a disadvantage for customers seeking the best price, schedule and service mix for themselves. Some long-time industry players remember the days when travel agents had a different phone for each airline. Contacting each airline individually, be it by phone or visiting a website, is a highly inefficient way to comparison shop.