American Airlines sues Orbitz over online distribution feud

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American Airlines filed an antitrust lawsuit against the travel website Orbitz.com and the distributor of its booking information, accusing them of monopoly tactics.

The suit, filed Tuesday in U.S. district court in Texas, is the latest salvo in a prolonged dispute over how booking data from airlines gets distributed to Orbitz, one of the nation’s most popular travel websites.

At the center of the dispute is Travelport, a Delaware-based company that owns a controlling interest in Orbitz and has an exclusive contract to collect booking data from airlines and distribute it to Orbitz and other travel websites. Travelport controls the sales of about 30% of all airline bookings made by U.S.-based travel agents.

American, the nation’s third-largest airline, and other air carriers must pay a commission to Travelport for every reservation made by travel agents and websites that use Travelport data.

For the last few months, American has pushed to cut Travelport out of the sales of airline tickets by urging Orbitz to get booking data directly from the airlines’ own computer system. When Orbitz refused to get the data directly, American pulled its fares from the website in December.

In the lawsuit, American claims that Travelport and Orbitz have collaborated to operate a monopoly that blocks American’s cheaper, alternative distribution system for booking data.

In a statement, Orbitz called the lawsuit baseless and accused American of playing ‘the role of the marketplace bully.’

As part of a similar dispute over booking fees, Expedia.com and Hotwire.com briefly dropped American from its sites in January. But the websites and American reached an agreement last week that returned American booking information to the websites. The terms of the agreement have not been made public.

-- Hugo Martin