Reports now show that American Airlines, which is one of the leading airlines in the United States, has just recently filed an antitrust lawsuit against the well-know travel website Orbitz.com. This lawsuit was actually filed in a United States district court in Texas this past Tuesday. Apparently American Airlines is accusing Orbitz of “monopoly tactics.”

This is just the latest advancement in a long going dispute over how booking data from airlines is distributed to Orbitz. The lawsuit pretty much says that Orbitz and Travelport have collaborated together to form a type of monopoly that blocks American Airlines’ cheaper alternative distribution systems.

See, the problem here is that American Airlines, which is the United State’s third largest airline, has to pay a commission to Travelport for every reservation that is made by travel agents and websites that use the Travelport data. American Airlines wants sites like Orbitz to get their flight data from their website. This would, of course, save the carrier money.

Of course, American Airlines is not the only airline that is struggling with this. In fact, Travelport controls the sales of about 30 percent of airline bookings that are made in the United States as a whole. Thus, it is very easy to see how this could easily get out of hand in terms of costs for airlines.

However, Oribtz does not feel the same way. In fact, they said that this lawsuit from American Airlines was completely “baseless.” They also went on to accuse the carrier of being the marketplace bully. Pretty much, Orbitz thinks the airline is trying to throw its weight around to get its way.

Subscribe for free and recieve the latest Self-Catering-Breaks news and stories
Filed under Travel News

• American Airlines Turbulence Leaves 6 Injured
• American Airlines Continues to Lose Money
• Stocks at American Airlines Drop Sharply
• American Airlines Searches for Jack the Missing Cat
• Justin Bieber Accused of Being a Jerk on American Airlines Flight
• American Airlines’ Dublin Call Center to Be Closed
• American Airlines Announces New Boarding Process
• Enterprise Holdings Pulls Itself From Orbitz
• European Commission Approves Tie-up Between American Airlines, British Airways, and Iberia
• Wasted British Passenger Forces an American Airlines Flight to Land in Alaska

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 14th, 2011 at 11:37 am and is filed under Travel News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.