American Airlines withdraws ticket selling from online agent Orbitz

American Airlines withdraws from Orbitz

American Airlines is pulling out its flight listings and stop selling tickets in the online travel site Orbitz.com. The airline's parent firm AMR Corp. won a Chicago court decision that lifted a temporary restraining order which blocked the airline from withdrawing from Orbitz earlier. American Airlines wanted to cut ties with Orbitz since it has developed its Direct Connect system to link with bigger online travel agencies and also to let passenger bookings rise on its website AA.com. In a statement, AA spokesman Ryan Mikolasik said, "In today's competitive marketplace, it is important for American to be free to customize its product offerings to improve the customer experience, as well as distribute its products in a way that does not result in unnecessary costs."

Some travel industry players are opposed to what AA is doing because passengers will allegedly suffer from higher ticket prices in the long run because they would not be able to compare fare prices and get the best deal. Orbitz will lose about 5 percent of their current revenue because of the AA withdrawal, but the company said other suppliers will fill the void left by AA. The airline is said to be pressuring online travel agencies to get flight information directly from it instead of using global distribution systems like Worldspan and Galileo. Orbitz part-owner Travelport said it was "disappointed" with the lifting of the TRO but vowed to pursue the case until a final resolution is reached. Travelport spokeswoman Jill Brenner said in a statement that AA's actions "will result in inefficiencies and added costs...detrimental to airline customers, travel agencies and consumers."

Posted by Sophia Andrews on Wednesday December 22 2010, 1:51 AM EST. Ref: Bloomberg. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Travel. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0