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Posted Aug 12, 2011
Though there are many questions and potential ramifications--known and unknown--on American Airlines' Direct Connect program, travel industry attorney Mark Pestronk said that for travel agencies, "there seems to be no harm" in signing up for it.
Posted Jun 3, 2011
Travel Weekly yesterday published comments from travel industry lawyer Mark Pestronk on American Airlines' Direct Connect program. I like Mark. He has helped out over the years, and much of what he said in that Travel Weekly piece seems about right to me. But not all of it. I felt compelled to respond.
Posted Jan 25, 2011
Stripping away the emotion from the debate, AA's new model moves the industry into uncharted distribution territory. Ironies abound. AA is fighting the very distribution platform it created. One year AA made more profit on Sabre than from running the airline. While not one to knock my brethren, the legal fees of the court cases will have to be recovered through higher fares for all when the dust settles. All this is happening in an industry that continues to consolidate--and may consolidate further this year. With dramatically higher oil prices, driving out costs seems imperative to the airlines.
Posted Jan 3, 2011
While the battle between the GDSs and their larger airline customers continues, I can't help but remember a similar time when SWA suddenly disappeared from Galileo (now Traveport) and agencies were scrambling for solutions. Fortunately, a few very bright programmers with access to the GDS and CompuServe were able to establish a link enabling agents to book SWA from any GDS workstation. GDSs would grumble and moan and threaten to pull agreements but I don't know that it ever happened and we sold a lot of SWADirect.
Posted Nov 22, 2010
A Cook County, Ill., circuit judge on Friday approved a temporary restraining order preventing American Airlines from terminating deals with Orbitz Worldwide. AA a few weeks ago notified Orbitz--48 percent-owned by Travelport--of its intention to cancel those agreements, effective Dec. 1. Instead, the parties on Dec. 2 will begin a preliminary injunction hearing in the circuit court to determine each parties' rights.
Posted Nov 10, 2010
In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed west from Europe in search of a new trade route to India. Instead of the popular belief that the world was flat he believed that it was round. Instead of India he came upon what we now know as the Americas. But while he is widely credited with discovering this "new world" the land had already been discovered and populated by native peoples who had migrated over many years before Columbus reached shore.
There are many that say that American Airlines is going into uncharted waters to change the distribution model. However, the fact of the matter is that we are not alone in our desire to utilize the advancements in technology to improve our business.
Posted Nov 8, 2010
American Airlines (in Texas) and Travelport (in Illinois) each filed suit against the other, stemming from AA's decision to cut off Orbitz, effective Dec. 1. Access Travelport's filing here and AA's here.
Posted Nov 8, 2010
Orbitz was formed by a group of airlines for the express purpose of introducing competition in the online travel market and bypassing expensive GDSs with direct connects to airlines. A controlling stake in Orbitz has since been purchased by an entity that also controls Travelport and its GDSs (i.e. Worldspan, Apollo, and Galileo). Direct connects potentially threaten Travelport's role as an intermediary between airlines and travel agencies. As a result, Travelport may have an incentive to do everything within its control to make sure that threat disappears.
Posted Nov 7, 2010
This whole issue is not only becoming a little tedious but also beginning to build like a volcano about to erupt. We have had quite a few years of the dormant stage but now the tremors are getting longer, bigger and more frequent.
Posted Nov 4, 2010
Following American Airlines' decision to end Orbitz's authority to ticket AA flights, Travelport, which owns 48 percent of Orbitz Worldwide, today said it is "taking a number of actions to defend travel agents and consumers commensurate with AA's anti-consumer and anti-competitive actions." When asked what those actions are, a spokeswoman wouldn't say.
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