American Airlines, Travelport Move Closer to Deal on Fare Displays

American Airlines, Travelport Move Closer to Deal on Fare Displays

American Airlines and Travelport are apparently on the verge of coming to a temporary agreement that would mean that Travelport would display American’s fares through Jan. 31. 2012, according to a court filing made late last week. At the same time, this may not mean they have reached a full resolution of their differences. In fact, American said in the same filing that Sabre has dramatically raised the booking fees it charges American and that Travelport is about to do the same, in what American is calling a punitive action.

American made the disclosures in a court filing last week that is part of an ongoing legal battle between the airline, which is trying to move to a direct connect system for distributing airfares, and the GDSs, which have been the traditional marketplace for airfares. It’s all part of a dizzying series of back-and-forth court filings that has put American up against Travelport, online travel agency Orbitz, of which Travelocity is part owner, and Sabre.

American is accusing Sabre and Travelport of anti-trust violations and says the two GDS companies have been filing motions in that case that are actually intended to delay litigation while they negotiate contracts that could be affected by court decisions. American said that these delaying tactics are an effort on the GDSs’ part to force American to abandon its direct connect initiative and also to get it to drop its anti-trust suit.

In its court filing, American said that “in order to coerce American to yield to their anticompetitive demands in advance of these looming contract termination dates, within the past few weeks Sabre has dramatically raised American’s booking fees -- effective immediately -- and Travelport informed American that it will do the same and, if American takes the only self-help measure available to it to recover these increased costs, it will retaliate further. Thus, defendants’ transparent strategy is to delay discovery until they can destroy American’s ability to prosecute this lawsuit.”

American made the allegation in a motion opposing Travelport’s efforts to stay discovery in the case. Discovery is the process in which each party to a lawsuit requests information and documents from the other side. American said Travelport and Sabre made the effort to stay discovery because they have filed a motion to dismiss American’s complaint against them.