Slashdot Mirror
Court Demands American Airlines List Its Flights On Orbitz
schwit1 writes "American Airlines, which removed its flights from Orbitz.com late last year, was ordered by a Chicago court on Thursday to allow the travel site access to its flight and fare information. American Airlines filed an anti-trust suit against Travelport in December, claiming that the company, which owns just under half of Orbitz's shares and runs the service compiling fare information for travel site, was trying to control the sale of tickets. Before the lawsuit, a considerable amount of American's revenue had been coming from tickets booked through Orbitz and Travelport."
Can't I sell my goods and services where I want?
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
I'd always felt that AA pulling their listings was simply a way for them to make more money by being LESS competitive on price...
Maybe I'm misinterpreting the article, but what is up with a business (AA) being forced to use a specific third party processor owned by a competitor and paying for the "privilege" in this manner. AA is the originator of the information and it should be at their discretion to which global distribution systems they publish it to According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_reservations_system) there are a handful of systems. The top two each serve just under half of the U.S. market share, one of which is created by American Airlines. The next largest is Travelport's "Worldspan" which is used by Orbitz.
There are 10 types of cliches in this world. Those that are new, and those that aren't.
Remember, AA was the first airline who wanted to be more "equitable" about distributing the fees and started charging fees to check bags.
Ostensibly they did this to be more fair to the people who didn't check bags.
Of course the other major carriers quickly followed suit.
My experience has been that the whole flying experience was heavily degraded by this misguided decision. Even when I pay the fee to check my bags, I'm forced to wait while people who were too cheap to do so try to shove their bags into overhead compartments they just won't fit in. Thus, the checked bag fee slaps me twice - once when I pay it, and again when I have to deal with people who should have, but didn't.
American Airlines came up with that idea, and I don't think I will ever set foot on one of their planes again as a result.
Why is American forced to list on Orbitz and not Southwest?
Is this step 1 in reregulating the airline industry?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I hate reading press accounts of court decisions that provide no useful information on what exactly the court was ruling on or how it reached its decision. Without this information, we have no idea if this decision was as broad as whether all airlines must list with central clearing houses (and why), as short-term / technical as over a paperwork error resulting in a temporary win for Orbitz until corrected by AA, or about something else altogether (ie there was a previously agreed to contract between the two companies that was still valid and that AA was trying to terminate early without sufficient justification.)
To be sure wait until the court decision is linked before forming any opinions, or at the very least until an article presents a credible explanation of what the issue being litigated is and how the court ruled on it.
Keep government hands off our anti-competitive business practices.
Yes, the customer pays indirectly, but that still doesn't change the fact that AA is being forced to provide the information through an intermediary that is a competitor. We have both sides that have a stake in how the information is transferred in an effort to reduce costs on their end, increasing profits, which inversely affects the other. I'm torn between siding with AA who owns the information, and Orbitz who was/is already wired to use their provider. As a consumer, I could wash my hands of this as I rarely fly AA due to costs, but I think the principle of the matter is important here.
There are 10 types of cliches in this world. Those that are new, and those that aren't.
I don't get it. A government court can order you (or a company) to purchase a commercial product you don't want to buy and its not even health insurance?
If it were my company I would fly every plane I got to China and melt them down as scrap before I ever complied with that nazi shit.
As a consumer I am paying for the quick comparison.
If AA wants to charge less through their own site, then maybe I will check it, but almost always it's cheaper and easier to book through orbitz or travelocity (not always though, and the through the airline tickets are usually easier to reschedule).
The airlines get enough government help that I don't really mind them being forced to let me comparison shop.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Come on Slashdot. Fix your shit.
I'm seeing my comments today coming through at 0 as well when logged in, vs 1 as AC. Not sure what that is either. For a minute I thought I was getting mod bombed.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I am also getting ads. I had that nice little checkbox to remove them with the "thanks for keeping slashdot great" WTF?
Only way to get tickets for Southwest is from Southwest. No bumbling around with other websites. Adding layers adds the possibility of confusion and errors. But then, I fly maybe once every 3-4 years, so I really don't care.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
It depends on how Orbitz is tacking on their fee. If they are displaying AA's actual price and then charging the customers, that is one thing. More likely they are displaying an artificially high fare, misrepresenting the actual price of flying AA.
Note, of course, that AA has no problem misrepresenting their own fares, not including fees and taxes and everything else that goes into the cost of a ticket.
Of course, people who fly AA are never really deciding the ticket based on cost, unless they are choosing the higher of two numbers.
t
There is no such thing as a "free market" because all markets are, by definition, based on sets of rules . That idea of the "market" is already "not free" by its nature. It implies a set of rules.
In other words, there's no such thing as a "natural market" that we can strive for. There is no such thing as an "ideal market" that we can point to as free from human invention. ALL MARKETS ARE A HUMAN INVENTION. Things like "buyer beware" - someone came up with that. Things like "the government should only enforce contracts" - someone came up with that. Things like "don't lie about the ingredients in your prepared food" - someone came up with that.
When people toss around words like "free market" these days, you have to pay very close attention to who's saying it, because some people use it to mean "just enough regulation to help my big business donors" while others use it to mean "just enough regulation to support my every-man-for-himself fantasy".
Nowhere in anyone's discussion is an acknowledgment that there's not really any such thing as a "free market", that it's all a matter of picking useful rules. But that's what it is - picking useful rules that serve the people involved.
Hey, so do socialists.
That's great. So we're all on the same page.
I guess the only thing we disagree on is what's "necessary" when it comes to regulations.
But at least we've got a starting point, right?
cheers,
I sure wish that the courts would stay out of business more. If AA doesn't want to sell their tickets through Orbitz, which previously generated a lot of business for them, that should be between AA, their customers, and their shareholders. Why is it the court's business to support Orbitz's business model over AA's?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Libertarians believe in necessary regulation. Those which don't simply don't know they aren't libertarians but anarchists. We DO have names for these things; you are hereby invited to use the proper ones.
And you are hereby invited to educate yourself on the various meanings of this particular term.
Source: Wikipedia; emphasis added. Some libertarians may be surprised to find some like-minded people among the anarchists. You are also invited to realize that many political terms are used differently by different people in different circumstances, for example: "national security." This double meaning is a source of endless confusion, often purposeful.
If this was any other business I would agree 100% that they shouldn't have such a ruling forced onto them. In this case however the airlines accept a large amount of government money every year. If you are going to accept the government money when its offered you have to play by their rules.
Am I lying when I tell you that im telling the truth? Or am I telling the truth when I say that Im lying?