While the viewing of American Airlines' flights is back to normal in the Sabre global distribution system, the airline has sued Travelport over display bias.
The existence of the suit only recently came to light, although the airline filed the litigation Dec. 30 in Cook County, Ill.
The suit for declaratory relief and damages seeks to permanently block Travelport "from publicly displaying false, biased and inflated fares for American flights in its Galileo global distribution system," the airline alleges. "By improperly hiding American's Booking Source Premium as part of American's base fares in its displays, Travelport is breaching its contract with American and wrongfully interfering with American's prospective business relations with consumers."
The suit is one of several between the two parties in Illinois and Texas.
The backdrop is that as American Airlines in November 2010 was beginning its ultimately successful attempt to terminate its contract with Travelport-controlled Orbitz Worldwide, Travelport apparently hiked American's GDS booking fees and the airline announced it would level a surcharge, called a Booking Source Premium, to travel agents outside the U.S. who book its flights through Travelport's Galileo and Worldspan GDSs.
In a Jan. 25, 2011, letter to travel agency customers, American alleges that Travelport is taking the airline's Booking Source Premium and including it in the base fare as a "fictitious YY Tax."
The impact is that the airline's fares appear more costly and thus get pushed way down in GDS displays when travel agents search for flights.
"While our preference would be to resolve these issues outside the courtroom, the seriousness of the deceptive practice for agencies and customers requires us to pursue legal recourse," writes Maria Sebastian, American's vice president, Europe, Middle East and Africa sales and marketing.
The bottom line for travel agencies outside the U.S. is that they face varying surcharges if they book American's flights through Worldspan and Galileo. American plans to collect the fees through automated debit memos via Bank Settlement Plans.
"We understand the undesired complexities and inconvenience that the Booking Source Premium may cause for many agencies," Sebastian writes. "However, it is the discriminatory fee increases imposed by Travelport upon American that have made it necessary to implement this Premium on American's marketed flights booked through a Travelport GDS."
The development means that American and Travelport remain at war, while Sabre and American have called a temporary truce, and Amadeus sits on the sidelines.
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Note: Kevin May did additional reporting for this story.