Travelport won the latest round of its US legal battle with American Airlines yesterday when an Illinois court affirmed the previous award of an injunction against the carrier. However, the injunction had already expired.
The Illinois Appellate Court, or appeal court, ruled that an injunction granted Travelport on June 1 was in order. The injunction gave US online agent Orbitz – in which Travelport holds a stake – access to American Airlines tickets.
The technology group hailed the ruling, saying it confirmed that agents using Travelport’s global distribution systems (GDSs) are also entitled to full access to American fares. Travelport owns the Worldspan and Galileo GDSs.
In a statement, the company said: “The ruling supports one of Travelport’s damages claims against American Airlines given American’s improper termination of Orbitz’s ticketing authority.”
The Court ruled: “Travelport has standing to complain that American breached the [parties’ contract] and its implicit covenant of good faith by barring Travelport from earning income from booking flights through . . . Orbitz.”
Travelport chief legal officer Eric Bock said: “Those rights are critical to protecting agencies’ ability to fully use AA’s content.”
American Airlines expressed disappointment and said it was studying its options. However, a spokesman for the airline told Travel Weekly: “The injunction terminated by its own terms on September 1.”
He pointed out American and Travelport agreed an extension of their existing full-content agreements in the summer, saying: “We have a new interim agreement with Travelport that provides for our continued participation in Orbitz and we do not expect that to change in the near term.”
Travelport said it would “continue to pursue its claims against American before the trial court” while also continuing “to work constructively with American to ensure consumers, corporations and agents benefit from the most transparent booking processes possible”.
The dispute centres on American’s desire to drive bookings via its own Direct Connect channel and cut the cost of appearing on GDSs. However, the focus of the legal dispute is in Texas where both Travelport and rival GDS Sabre are involved in anti-trust litigation with the airline.
Sabre Holdings and American learned this week that they must wait until June 13 next year to begin their anti-trust lawsuit in the Texas State Court.