Farelogix, a key partner in American Airlines Direct Connect, says it was going to withhold a video challenging the motives of Sabre and Travelport in biasing the airline's flights in GDSs after learning that peace broke out Jan. 24 between Sabre and American.
However, Ask the Question 8 found its way to YouTube Jan. 25 a little while after Farelogix saw the "chain letter" Sabre emailed to customers urging them to keep pressure on American Airlines over its Direct Connect initiative, says Farelogix CEO Jim Davidson.
In the video, Davidson questions whether Sabre's and Travelport's actions were geared to help travel agencies, consumers or the GDSs themselves?
He also questions why Sabre, which made it difficult to book the airline's flights in the GDS, didn't bias American Airlines' flights on Sabre-owned Travelocity, speculating that -- contractual obligations aside -- perhaps Travelocity stood to gain from the absence of American Airlines' flights on Expedia and Orbitz.
Here's the video:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2igKkdz4DI
Note: There's a new wrinkle to Farelogix's Ask the Question video series -- a Full Transparency Statement. Among its many provisions, Farelogix states: "Farelogix receives no outside third party, industry, coalition or customer compensation or sponsorship for the development and distribution of any Farelogix publications and presentations."
That's an apparent dig at several industry coalitions opposed to American Airlines Direct Connect. The funding sources of these efforts have not been disclosed.