American Airlines has sued Travelport to get a permanent injunction forcing Travelport to show its fares without bias in the Galileo reservations system.  No doubt the small amount of success in forcing a stalemate with Sabre has caused American to think that it can achieve similar results with other global distribution systems.

Maybe. Maybe not.  Achieving some relief in court only lasts a short time.  At one point or another, AA has to either walk away from the GDS companies or it has to do a deal.  A deal won’t get done in court.  Doing a deal requires both parties to work things out and the fact that AA is suing is a signal to the GDS companies that they are having some effect on AA’s bottom line.  Continuing to show solidarity among themselves can only result in putting more pressure on AA than the GDS companies.

And just because you sued doesn’t mean you’ll win.  If AA loses the latest battle, they’ll be on even worse footing than before.  All of this over something that will save just tens of millions for an operation that is generating more than $23 billion in revenue.

If I were  a shareholder in AA, I would be much more interested in the company resolving labor issues and raising productivity which could generate hundreds of millions for the company.  I would want to see the company heavily engaged in hedging its fuel costs and making them more predictable which could save hundreds of millions of dollars.  I would want to see growth into profitable long haul routes which can only be done by working things out with pilots. 

I would not want to see a public fight with GDS systems who can have a real and measurable effect on AA’s ability to sell tickets.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax
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