That didn't take long. On the same day their litigation "stand down" ended, Sabre on Wednesday joined as a defendant the AA antitrust suit in Northern Texas U.S. District Court against Travelport. Sabre separately took on the role of plaintiff in an antitrust suit against American, alleging, among other things, that the carrier has used its "monopoly" position in some markets to coerce travel agents to use its Direct Connect for access to fares and fees.
Sabre claims AA has "embarked on an anticompetitive campaign" to eliminate GDS price transparency, has "launched a public and private campaign to encourage other airlines to similarly withhold fare information or withdraw form the GDSs," has tied fare access to use of the direct connect, and "refuses to deal with agents unless they agree to use AA direct connect." Sabre pointed to the elimination of Orbitz's "right to issue any tickets on AA's flights" as one example.
Sabre took several shots at AA's Direct Connect, claiming that even the few agencies that have bought into Direct Connect have done so against their will or best interest. One such customer, Priceline, "indicated to Sabre that AA Direct Connect is inefficient and that Priceline would prefer not to use it," according to Sabre's court documents. "But Priceline nevertheless was forced to use AA Direct Connect in order to get access to critical AA fare information."
American called Sabre's suit "meritless" and pointed to Priceline for proof that Direct Connect preserves comparison shopping: "Anyone who logs on to Priceline today can readily see that American Airlines direct connect does nothing to prevent effective comparison shopping between American and its competitors," according to an AA press statement.
Sabre referenced an unnamed agency that "did not want to take AA Direct Connect because it is awkward and would slow the travel agent down considerably, but nevertheless took it so as to have access to AA complete fare information (and the ability to book AA tickets at all), which it feared would not be available through the GDS." Sabre similarly asserted that Rearden Commerce "acquiesced to the use of AA Direct Connect only after AA threatened not to provide its complete fare information to Rearden."
In seeking to become a defendant in the ongoing proceeding between American and Travelport, Sabre described American's antitrust suit as a not-so-subtle attack on the broader distribution industry, implicating not just the defendant, Travelport, but all GDSs, and explained that it wants to defend itself against such allegations.
Travelport last week shot back at American in the Texas district court, and sought dismissal of the antitrust suit.
"The present parties do not adequately represent Sabre's interests," according to court documents filed by Sabre. "In defending the conspiracy claim against it, Travelport has no incentive to ensure that its positions will not affect Sabre's defenses."
American claimed that during their legal ceasefire "American sought commercially reasonable terms for distribution through the Sabre GDS, but Sabre has been unresponsive to those requests," according to a carrier statement asserting that AA would honor its "contractual obligations" throughout the proceedings.
"We believe the evidence in this case will quickly debunk Sabre's claims, which appear to be nothing more than an attempt to misdirect attention from the real issues," according to American. "This dispute is not about any imagined effort by American to hide the true cost of its services. Instead, this case is really about whether American and its customers can finally benefit from new competition, technologies and efficiencies in the distribution of services."
The article originally was published in The Beat.