Last autumn, Sabre got an early holiday gift. The presiding judge said she would not give US Airways a critical legal declaration it wanted.
Judge Lorna Schofield of the US Southern District Court said she didn't have the authority to rule the way US Airways would want, and that even if she did, she wouldn't be inclined to adopt its position on the specific legal matters.
To get a bench trial, US Airways had agreed to limit the monetary damages it sought in exchange for receiving a bench trial. (See "US Airways to judge: We’ll accept $20 and Sabre’s antitrust guilt.")
The airline's attorneys had gambled that its arguments would play better to a judge in a bench trial, rather than to a jury, which, among other things, might have biases against airlines that are unrelated to the merits of the case.
But US Airways misinterpreted how the judge was thinking about the case. Her pre-trial decisions last autumn suggested that the prospects for the airline's bench antitrust case against Sabre were grim.
In short, US Airways, since acquired by American Airlines, had rolled the dice and lost.
Now it wants a jury trial after all. It recently reinstated its damage claims. To agree to this, the judge required the airline to pay $6,416,792.50 in legal costs to Sabre, according to a document filed on February 10th.
Yesterday the airline confirmed that the payment was sent. The judge has set April dates for bringing the parties together to schedule a jury trial. The amount of damages the airline is now seeking hasn't been revealed.
The airline accuses Sabre of abusing its market power. The tech company denies any wrongdoing.
In pre-trial arguments, Sabre conceded that it has the largest market share in North America of the GDSs. But it argued, among other things, that its scale brings enough efficiencies and other benefits to the airlines, to the agencies, and to the consumer, and it says that its fees are justified and proportionate.
US Airways will likely attempt to prove that Sabre charged inflated prices for the services it provided and that it colluded to prevent the airlines from developing competitive alternatives as well as insisted on contract provisions that violate US antitrust law.
In 2012, American Airlines settled out of court for a similar case against Sabre years ago, with Tnooz estimating the handshake costing $280 million.
The airline has since not only continued to distribute inventory through Sabre but had Sabre do a major technology platform shift for it this past year. It recently also began to sell the airline's upgraded seat products using NDC-based technology standards.
Earlier: US Airways faces new risk in its antitrust case against Sabre