According to American Airlines, meta-search sites Kayak and Sidestep "advised American Airlines that they will no longer display American's content effective Aug. 1, 2008. We are disappointed and hopeful that this issue can be resolved in the near future ... Our schedules and fares remain available through many other meta-search engines such as Mobissimo and Farecast" for purchase through aa.com.
TechCrunch reported the development on Wednesday. The comments section includes replies from participants identifying themselves as Kayak executives Keith Melnick and Steve Hafner. According to them, "American asked us to suppress search results from competing Web sites as a condition to displaying their fares. This is simply not something that Kayak will do. Imagine Sony telling Best Buy that they couldn’t sell Panasonic?
"We are dedicated to providing a comprehensive and objective display to our users. We’re unwilling to amend this pro-consumer philosophy that is the core of our business by suppressing results based on a partner's request. We welcome American Airlines to rejoin Kayak.com's objective results at any time."
