The U.S. Dept. of Justice inquiry into Sabre's termination of its developer's agreement with Farelogix in March and allegations of anti-competitive practices has headed into Canada.
Graham Wareham, senior director of product distribution for Air Canada, says the DOJ recently interviewed him "with a big series of questions" about Sabre's market position in Canada, and the tack that the airline is taking with travel agency customers.
Wareham says the DOJ reserved the right to return with further questions for Air Canada, which distributes its inventory through both Sabre and Farelogix.
"I personally see this as a huge negative for the customer," Wareham says, referring to the Sabre-Farelogix dispute.
Of course, Air Canada has had its own issues with Sabre and other GDSs.
Wareham speaks of the impact in Canada of Sabre's pulling the plug on Farelogix.
Farelogix was getting "lots of traction" as midsize agencies in Canada were testing it, Wareham says, but "everything stalled" when Sabre terminated its Farelogix relationship.
Farelogix alleges -- and Sabre denies it -- that Sabre told its agency customers not to do business with Farelogix.
"It made the conversation a lot harder," Wareham says.
He likes the way Farelogix was doing things, not only from a narrow distribution perspective, but in the way it was enabling displays of the airline's attribute-based shopping.
"Innovation is something far off in the future now," Wareham says, with some dejection.
The fallout from the dispute is that a lot of agency bookings for Air Canada have reverted from Farelogix back to the airline's websites, Wareham says.
From many agents' perspectives, it is far more efficient to book airlines in their GDS desktops than on airline websites.
Air Canada's positioning with Travelport agencies differs from the Sabre-Farelogix scenario because Travelport unveiled in early 2008 its Agencia agent desktop, which Travelport says enables "Canadian agents to access and book the full range of Air Canada’s innovative a la carte fare products and attributes, including Flight Passes."
But, Wareham says "progress has been slow" on that front as agents have had problems integrating Agencia bookings with their GDS.
Meanwhile, theories abound -- some wilder than others -- as to why Sabre played hardball with Farelogix.
Here are some new ones I've heard.
Since Air Canada distributes through Farelogix, it was Sabre's payback for its conflicts with Air Canada.
It was Sabre getting back at American Airlines, which distributes through Farelogix, because American signed a letter of intent with HP and is ditching Sabre as the host of the airline's internal reservations system. [The timing really doesn't appear to work for this theory because Sabre ended the Farelogix relationship in March and American came to terms with HP only several weeks ago.]
Sabre would only have taken this extreme action with Farelogix if Sabre had attempted to buy Farelogix and was rebuffed. [Farelogix President and CEO Jim Davidson says: "I am not aware of any interest from Sabre in acquiring Farelogix, and I probably would know, but one can never be sure."]
There is even a Middle East angle, offered by one source. Mercator, owned by the Emirates Group, has ample distribution clout in the region, much to the dismay of Sabre's aims in the Middle East. [Commenting on that theory, Davidson says: We have a relationship with the airline side of the house -- Emirates -- which I would assume Sabre is/was not happy about."]
So much for theories.