Orbitz Worldwide doubled its first-quarter net loss to $10.9
million from $5.3 million last year despite a good showing by the company's
Orbitz for Business segment.
CEO Barney Harford noted "strength in corporate travel
demand," including a 15 percent year-over-year jump in OfB room nights,
but said he was "not satisfied" by the company's overall financial
performance. U.S. consumer segments, namely Orbitz and CheapTickets, performed
comparatively poorly.
Overall, worldwide gross bookings increased 2 percent year
over year, but air bookings declined 1 percent—"due primarily to actions
taken by certain airlines to limit the marketing of their fares on meta-search
sites, such as Kayak, fare structure changes implemented by a major airline,
higher airfares and, to a lesser extent, the lack of American Airlines' content
on the company's Orbitz.com site," according to a company statement.
"We continue to be able to replace much of—in fact,
nearly half of—the American Airlines ticket share through substitution for
other airlines on our websites," Harford told analysts. Orbitz for
Business customers interested in booking AA tickets still must rely on phone
calls to the carrier.
Despite the air volume decrease, air revenue grew 1 percent
to $72.5 million, which the company attributed to "an increase in global
distribution systems incentive revenue and, to a lesser extent, higher
commissions from airlines with variable commission structures driven by higher
average airfares."