Continental Airlines yesterday in a memo to corporate clients said an agreement earlier this month by global distribution systems Sabre and Amadeus to share content would violate the carrier's existing contract.
In a memo dated March 27, Continental senior vice president of worldwide sales Dave Hilfman told clients that Continental had not been able to see the agreement between the two GDSs, but its contracts with the distribution players "do not allow them to share fare, schedule and inventory information between them."
The memo stopped short of threatening legal action—a possibility that American Airlines said it is exploring. "We will take the appropriate actions necessary to protect our 'content' if it is used by any GDS company without our permission," the Continental memo said. "We don't want you to be without our content on these systems, of course, but the GDS companies need to supply it to you in a legitimate way. We don't want you to be misguided into thinking that the announcement made by Sabre and Amadeus resolves the uncertainty about the availability of our content on these systems if there are no contracts with Continental."
Hilfman said in the memo that Continental continues to work on new agreements with all GDSs, yet only would sign if the carrier can secure "significantly better economics in our new agreements."
"It is our sincere desire to be 'on the shelf' in every GDS," the memo said. "The fact remains, however, that there is a real possibility we will not reach agreements with every system and, because of this uncertainty, we suggest you explore other sources of Continental's content to plan in advance for possible interruption of availability of Continental's content on systems that you use."
Under the Amadeus and Sabre agreement, each global distribution system can leverage the other to access nonparticipating carriers' fares
(BTN, March 20). The GDSs positioned the agreement as a safety net to ensure clients have access to potentially unavailable airfares, but said they have yet to execute the agreement, nor will they if content negotiations with carriers go as planned.
Travel management companies, travel managers and corporate travel associations generally favored the agreement, which threatens to take away major domestic carriers' potentially powerful bargaining chip of withdrawal threats as distribution contracts expire this year.