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."

Comments

Free Trade?

[Trip6]

Can't I sell my goods and services where I want?

Re:Free Trade?

[whoever57]

Can't I sell my goods and services where I want?

Not when you have a contract to sell them through an intermediary.

Re:Free Trade?

[node 3]

There's absolutely no such thing as a Free Market. There is, by extension, no such thing as Free Trade either.

Can't I sell my goods and services where I want?

Yes, but within the law (well, technically you also can at least try outside of the law, but that's a different matter).

Now, in some sort of hypothetical anarchist/libertarian nation, you will find that without governments to enforce their law, cartels and mobs and the like will rise and enforce their laws.

At least with proper democratic governments, the laws are more subject to the will of the governed. Maybe not so much these days (and really, maybe not even in the olden days), but it's still better than having the laws set by kings, warlords, and mob bosses.

But either way, you still never end up with a Free Market or Free Trade.

Re:Free Trade?

[yndrd1984]

There's absolutely no such thing as a Free Market. There is, by extension, no such thing as Free Trade either.

True- in the real world there probably can never be absolutely free markets or trade. And by your logic there's no such thing as free speech or equality under the law, but just because we can't actually have them doesn't mean that they can't be ideals that we strive to emulate or guidelines for our legal system. In the same way I'll never manage to be perfectly honest or rational, but that doesn't mean that I can't attempt to avoid lying or try to overcome my biases.

At least with proper democratic governments, the laws are more subject to the will of the governed. ... it's still better than having the laws set by kings, warlords, and mob bosses.

Right - there will always be the organized use of force in the world, but as you pointed out some methods of organization are preferable to others. As part of the governed, I summarize my preference for regulations to be few over many, necessary over unnecessary, clear over vague, evenly over unevenly applied, etc as "I am generally in favor of free markets". I think that can be just as clear as your preference for democracy.

Re:Free Trade?

[pentalive]

There's absolutely no such thing as a Free Market. There is, by extension, no such thing as Free Trade either.

..., you will find that without governments to enforce their law, cartels and mobs and the like will rise and enforce their laws...

But if the only laws the government makes are to prevent cartels and mobs, but no other law, isn't there then a "Free Market"?

Re:Free Trade?

[harrytuttle777]

Are tyrants and warlords really worse than the current situation? At least with warlords there is a meritocracy of sorts. (The strongest are in charge). In the current situation the most duplicitous make the laws for their own benefit, while enriching their pockets, and claiming to serve society. The most conniving are the alpha dogs. Give me a meritocracy based on steel and might any day over a meritocracy based on duplicity and lies.

I would rather have an outcome based on an old fashioned gun battle, than being decided by a team of overpriced lawyers hired to stretch the truth beyond recognition to a jury. At least with a gun fight you are not lying to yourself and saying your cause has any moral high ground. This is what the current legal / governmental climate in the USA, has led me to believe.

-When the laws become criminal, only criminals obey the laws.

Re:Free Trade?

[houghi]

There are many people working on that. Try reselling tickets to concerts.

Re:Free Trade?

[node 3]

There's absolutely no such thing as a Free Market. There is, by extension, no such thing as Free Trade either.

..., you will find that without governments to enforce their law, cartels and mobs and the like will rise and enforce their laws...

But if the only laws the government makes are to prevent cartels and mobs, but no other law, isn't there then a "Free Market"?

Absolutely not. I do agree that the government should work to prevent cartels and mobs, as well as minimizing the impact the government has on a market, but any laws whatsoever, by definition, are not a free market.

That's the fundamental flaw of the libertarians. I agree a lot with their end desires, but they pretend to be ideologically pure. But reality is their ideals can never be achieved. If you believe you can be ideologically pure, you try to enforce an impossible policy. That can never end well.

Re:Free Trade?

[node 3]

Are tyrants and warlords really worse than the current situation?

I commend you for being honest. Insane, but honest.

At least with warlords there is a meritocracy of sorts. (The strongest are in charge).

You are right that it's a form of meritocracy, but it's a meritocracy of the worst kind. It's a meritocracy of "might makes right".

In absence of any other form of equality or meritocratic society, might makes right is at least something, but it's the worst of all possible somethings. The only thing it has going for it is that it is, at least, something, but that's it. We can do so much better than that. Democracy is all but infinitely better than a "might makes right" system.

Re:Free Trade?

[node 3]

You bet your ass there's such a thing as free trade. Happens every day between states, and between provinces. Fair trade however is quickly becoming the norm, and if you want to see how bad it's getting you only need to look at NAFTA.

hahaha...

Try to bring weapons, drugs, or people, across state lines, and tell me if you think free trade actually exists.

Re:Free Trade?

[node 3]

I agree that "free trade" should be an ideal, but it should also be understood that it is impossible to ever achieve. The problem arises when people think that anything less than "free trade" is immoral. What that really means is that morality is impossible. That's the fundamental flaw with the Randists and the libertarians.

Re:Free Trade?

[drinkypoo]

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.

Re:Free Trade?

[jbengt]

Mod parent up.
If you read far enough into TFA, you'll see that this is a contract dispute, not a free trade dispute.

Am I missing something?

[Krozy]

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.

Re:Am I missing something?

[node 3]

Although I mostly agree with AA's stance here (with what little I know about the whole situation), the court is enforcing a contract AA has with Orbitz. This isn't the court simply telling them they have to deal with Orbitz, but that they have to honor their contract with them.

Also, airlines are subject to greater regulatory restrictions than most other industries for, what I think should be fairly obvious reasons. Those reasons don't directly apply here, but it's not like this industry is as free to do as it wishes as is normal for the rest of the private sector.

Re:About time

[eln]

Airlines want to pull their listings from sites like these because the sites take a percentage of each sale. The airlines can charge lower fares and still maintain their profit margins by only offering tickets on their own sites. Southwest Airlines doesn't offer fares through these sites for exactly that reason.

Useless Article - Court Reasoning Not Explained

[brucek2]

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.

Re:Southwest?

[arbiter1]

maybe they have some type of contract?

Yes, the customer pays indirectly, but that still

[Krozy]

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.

Re:I avoid AA Like the plague anyway

[TexVex]

I've never quite understood this type of "single issue" consumer.

I have this "single issue" mentality, and I think it makes both logical and emotional sense. Basically, consumers are individuals and have very little power in a marketplace dominated by huge corporations. We don't get to haggle over prices much; it's pretty much take-it-or-leave-it. We can theoretically vote with our wallets by going to a competitor.

However, the big businesses just end up colluding. It's usually not overt. They're not having meetings to decide these things, but they follow each other when their "competitors" show some success. So eventually, all the competition is overcharging and under-providing while claiming that the value they provide is fair. They collectively have the upper hand, because a consumer can't say "no" to ALL of them. If you gotta make a phone call or get on the Internet or travel somewhere fast, then you have to agree to be taken advantage of by these implicitly colluding corporate monsters.

So over time, things get worse and worse for the consumer. ISPs cap bandwidth. Phone companies get away with making their users pay for minutes they never use, or charge them ten times as much when they use too much. Airlines begin to nickel-and-dime you to for everything -- any bet on how long it will take them to start installing pay toilets on the planes?

We poor consumers basically just keep taking the worst of it, until we finally just refuse to take it any more. Sometimes when it gets really bad, we file class-action lawsuits. Those make lawyers rich and make us feel better, and sometimes the defendant backs down and plays nice for a while. But if banding together and suing is not an option, then we have to use whatever other weapons we have to fight back. One good way is to bad-mouth an offending business at every opportunity.

As screwed-over consumers, the value we get from latching on to such a "single issue" is not that we are refusing our patronage to an entity who offended us, but that it gives us something specific to focus on when we share our tales of woe in hopes of costing them more business than just our own.

I haven't bought a Sony product since the PS2 -- back then my single issue was proprietary formats. Then it was the rootkit. Then Blu-Ray, then removing Linux from the PS3, and now their inability to keep from being rooted like a clogged toilet.

A few weeks back, I ordered a steak from the Chilis across the way. It was a to-go order, and the place is walking distance from my house. I'm not expecting much -- it is Chilis after all, but I do expect that the food be edible. I ordered it cooked medium. Now, I knew I was taking a bit of a risk. The quality of that place has steadily gone down over the last year -- food badly seasoned, or brought to the table cold when dining in, or long waits both before and after ordering, what have you. So, I go get my steak, and don't check it before I leave. I get home, open it, and find a thin piece of shoe leather. The cook had sliced it open down the middle, must have clearly seen that it was beyond well-done, and boxed it up for me anyway. Not wanting to bother going back for a new one, I decided to have a bite anyway, and discovered that it was old meat on the verge of being rancid (which must be why they overcooked it.) That was over the top. So I took the food back and pointed out every horrid thing about that box of food to the manager. When he offered me a replacement, and coupons for next time, I told him I'm never setting foot in there again. And I haven't. Not just his Chilis, but every other one, and I've even diverted group lunches at work to other places by telling that story.

It's not that they fucked up one steak. It's that their quality has been declining over the last couple years while their prices have been going up. The steak was just the final straw, and it's a good solid example of why not to give them my custom. Maybe they'll learn their lesson; if I ever become convinced of that then I'll give 'em another try.

Re:Yes, the customer pays indirectly, but that sti

[AvitarX]

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.

Re:Court ordered purchases

[AHuxley]

"American's contract with Orbitz expires this year." - Most parts of the world do try to uphold contracts.

Re:airline hosed by judge.

[darkshadow88]

Or you could read the article and see that American Airlines had a contract, and that the court is just forcing them to abide by it.

Re:Should have gone like Southwest

[timbo234]

On the contrary when I want to fly somewhere I want to put the origin, destination, dates (and even times of day if that's important for the trip) into a website and get a list of all the options sorted by price. I can then pick the cheapest one that's not at ridiculous times (eg. 6am flight from London Stanstead or something equally awful).

That's how it works in Europe at the moment with sites like expedia, opodo, skyscanner etc. and it's a godsend, it's also one of the strongest drivers of real competition between the airlines. The alternative, which American Airlines is hoping other airlines will also adopt, is that you must go to each separate carriers website and enter those details manually.

Of course no one will do this for the 10-30 airline options that exist between most European destinations so you'll get people going with whatever airline they have some crappy royalty program with or have flown with before.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/fast_track/9369897.stm

"Libertarians believe in necessary regulation."

[198348726583297634]

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,