We
published in The Beat an interview with US Airways president Scott Kirby that not only echoed American Airlines' view that it should not have to pay global distribution system firms for distributing ancillary services, but did so again and again.
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Kirby: "Our view is that for all the ancillary services that we are making available, we are willing to let the GDSs make [them] available as well.
We are not willing to pay extra for it and they are going to have invest in functionality in order to present it to their customers. But we are not trying to put product on our Web site--Choice Seats might be the biggest, where some seats on the airplane will only be available initially direct from US Airways. We are willing to make those available through any of the GDSs to everyone who wants them, but
aren't willing to pay for that. If people want that as additional functionality, we will facilitate that, but that is an added benefit we are willing to give and not charge anyone [to distribute] but
we also don't expect to pay them for that."
Got it? Good.