Airline vs. online travel agency battle gets hotter

The dispute between American Airlines and the online travel agencies over how customers shop for tickets and compare prices keeps getting hotter. Now the parent of one of the global distribution systems -- Sabre, which ironically was started by American -- says it won't include its former parent in its data base used by travel agents after this summer. Unless negotiations change that ... Read more about it here. 

Have you figured out from reading previous stories here or elsewhere what this is all about? Let me try to explain. American (and most airlines) would prefer you buy tickets on its aa.com Web site. That's the cheapest way for the airline to distribute its products. If you buy from an online agency such as Expedia, Orbitz or Travelocity, or from a traditional travel agent, the transaction goes through big industry-wide data bases called GDS or global distribution systems. American has to pay those agencies fees to issue the ticket that way. So American has been working on creating its own way for the traditional agencies and individuals to deal directly with the airline and cut out the middlemen, in this case the GDS.

So why should it make a difference to you? Consumers generally will find the best selection of price and schedule by comparison shopping on multi-airline Web sites. Companies with managed travel programs, where use of certain airlines is mandated for traveling employees because of the discounts the carriers give the companies, are particularly worried that will lose control of where their travelers are shopping, and if they don't have an agency monitoring the whole process, what all the best available fares are. Will American offer its lowest, most flexible fares only on its site?

Among the telling aspects of American's direct connect effort is that the airline is promoting it as a way for a customer to see all fee information in one place -- a sales pitch to get more companies and their travel agencies to use the new purchasing channel. At the same time, as you've read here before, the airlines are generally against a proposed Department of Transportation rule that would require them to disclose on their Web sites the estimated total of all fees and surcharges before a consumer makes a purchase. Go to www.MadAsHellAboutHiddenFees.com for background on this issue.

Direct sales to customers on an airline's Web site isn't necessarily a bad thing. As Southwest advertises heavily, its site is the only place to buy its tickets. But for consumers to have confidence they are getting the best value for their money, they have to first trust that the airline itself seems to want to do right by its customers and isn't trying to trick them into paying more than they could. Most of Southwest's customers seem to trust it. The question is whether that can be said for other airlines as they try to change your ticket shopping and buying habits.