Travelport Dismisses AA’s Allegations as “Ludicrous and Without Merit”

Travelport has said it intends to vigorously defend against what it calls a “ludicrous and meritless antitrust lawsuit” filed by American Airlines in Fort Worth, TX.

In a statement issued today by Travelport, the company insists that 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.”

The statement goes on to say that “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 Travelport stresses “AA benefits from significant discounts - some five years after its initiation and at a time of renewal.”

In unsuccessful negotiations and now in litigation, “Travelport says that AA is seeking 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, the company says it 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 ended the statement by saying that it “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.”

American has said it intends to honor its existing contractual obligations with Travelport throughout the proceedings of this action.

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