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Travelport dismisses AA's allegations as "Ludicrous and Without Merit"

Direct News Source

13-Apr-2011 Travelport, the business services provider to the global travel industry, today announces that it intends to vigorously defend against a ludicrous and meritless antitrust lawsuit filed by American Airlines (AA) in Fort Worth, TX.  

AA's antitrust complaint contains significant factual inaccuracies, including, for example, wrongly stating that Galileo, a Travelport GDS platform, operates in the United States -- which it has never done. There are also many disparaging comments about Travelport's technology which are not borne out by facts including recent airline adoption of Travelport's merchandising capability or innovation such as the ground-breaking Travelport uAPI.

The complaint also finds fault with Travelport/AA's longstanding distribution agreement -- through which AA benefits from significant discounts -- some five years after its initiation and at a time of renewal.

In unsuccessful negotiations and now in litigation, AA seeks to limit consumer choice in shopping for fares and to limit consumer access to other relevant data. Travelport's aggregation, search and shopping allows travel agents and consumers a full range of choices across over 400 airlines. Travelport believes that AA's plans to force a more restrictive distribution model would result in inefficiencies and considerable added costs ultimately to be paid by consumers.

Travelport believes this lawsuit is merely another attempt by AA to gain bargaining leverage through litigation. AA's unfortunate choice to litigate frivolous positions, rather than engage in fair and constructive negotiations, leaves Travelport with no alternative except to defend these claims vigorously and to take all appropriate legal action.